How conscious are you of the seating arrangement when you try to encourage students to engage in class discussion? Do you leave seats in rows, or do you create a circle, or semi circle of chairs? Which do you think is more likely to stimulate discussion?

Where do you position yourself when asking a student a question? Do you move as far away as possible so that if the student addresses an answer to the teacher (as students usually do) it will be loud enough for the rest of the class to hear it?

What kinds of questions do you pose when trying to generate class dialogue? Are they questions that have only one answer – such as “Who was the third president of the United States?” Questions that have only one answer are likely to cause stress for students. Questions that ask students for their perceptions encourage dialogue because any answer is correct if it is an honest perception. Questions that ask for an opinion are also good dialogue generators. Students can offer responses that may differ from what the teacher is looking for and, yet, can be praised for their opinions as long as they are able to support them with reasonable rationale.

Is the seating arrangement really that important?

. Yes, when classroom dialogue is desired, the seating arrangement and layout of the room can create an appropriate environment for discussion. The teacher must be conscious of the impact of the seating arrangement on people’s sense of belonging to the group and the effect this has on their willingness to participate in group discussion. If there is a whole class discussion, seating should be arranged in a circle, to the degree possible, and no one should be permitted to sit on the outside of the circle.

The critical importance of the seating arrangement is exemplified with two quick anecdotes, each involving teachers and administrators:

· A facilitator had asked two groups of participants at a workshop, seated at opposite ends of a room approximately 100 feet long, to agree on a response to a question. After allowing five minutes, the facilitator asked the groups to share their responses and try to reach consensus. A reporter from one group stood up and shouted across the room. A reporter from the other group stood up and shouted his group’s response. For at least five minutes the two groups attempted to reach consensus by shouting back and forth before one person suggested, “Why don’t we move our chairs together and form one group?”

· In the second instance, a workshop was conducted in a cafeteria with long, narrow tables attached to benches. When the facilitator asked groups of ten to work together, discussion began and participants stretched to observe and hear whoever was speaking. After five minutes, only the few people at the center of the long table were engaged in relevant discussion while almost everyone else had given up on efforts to stretch their necks, and their ears, far enough to participate. Instead, they were engaged in side conversations or were making good company to themselves reading a newspaper or correcting papers.

People, too often, accept whatever seating arrangement exists when they enter the room. Empowerment, for adults or students, means being cognizant of how the seating arrangement will encourage or discourage group discussion.

(The foregoing is from “Applying Standards-Based Constructivism: A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Elementary Students, written by Pat Flynn, Don Mesibov, Paul Vermette, and Mike Smith; published by Eye on Education.)

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

Let’s apply some common sense to the debate over NCLB. To understand this complex issue requires a look at where our country was with regard to education immediately prior to NCLB.

Forty nine of fifty states had adopted “standards” and the 50th state, Iowa, required every district to set its own standards. States were scampering to create assessments for their standards. Therefore, while New York State stood in the minority a number of years ago with its regents’ exams, more and more states are creating similar assessments in order to give meaning to their standards.

However, the following problem exists and it challenges the credibility of NCLB:

State assessments are not completely aligned with state standards. For example, in New York State, not all the standards are assessed on statewide tests, and some standards that are assessed are given far more value than others. This poses a problem for teachers: “Do I teach to the standards, or do I have my students address what I know will be on the state assessments?

Standards which require student demonstration (which many of them do) too often are assessed with short-answer/essay type tests which do not tell us what students can demonstrate. (This is why we have students graduating who can get an A on standardized assessments but, according to the private sector and universities, cannot demonstrate the skills and abilities their grades indicate they should have.) Assessing what students can do with a short answer test is akin to giving the gold medal at the Winter Olympics to the skater who can score the highest by answering questions about the history of skating, how to make skates, and what techniques should be used by skaters.

Performance assessment is the key to effective evaluation of students. Performance assessment is doing, and will do, for education what technology has done for industry. It is new and it has enormous potential for changing educational practices. Few teachers are trained to effectively administer performance assessments. Gradually, teachers are learning, but it will take time. Few policy makers (legislators, state ed. officials) have ever been in a classroom where students have been active learners who are assessed on the basis of their performance rather than on a test which relies heavily on linguistic and mathematical/logical intelligences. For the first time in decades, if not centuries, some university students are entering the teaching profession with more of an understanding of good pedagogical practices than the administrators who are hiring them. (This is not a criticism of administrators – just recognition that the times they are a changing.)

There is a revolution taking place in the field of education and it is in how we assess student performance. We have the know-how, and, gradually, we are moving in the direction of authentic performance based assessment. Unfortunately, too few policy makers understand what is meant by performance assessment (for reasons cited above). Therefore, expecting the people currently in policy making positions to determine how to assess would be like asking people, in 1960, who knew little about computers to design the technology for the 21st century. In other words, we need to allow people to emerge who can do for education what Bill Gates has done for the field of technology. They are here among us. We need to identify them and follow their lead.

There are still major questions that need to be addressed with regard to performance assessment: How do we create a system that is realistic economically and can be administered on a large scale? What kind of training will professional educators need and how rapidly can this be accomplished? These are the questions that should be getting our attention.

In a nutshell, there are two major flaws in NCLB, one of which I have addressed and one of which I will now highlight:

First flaw – assessments are not valid: The basis for accountability and decision making under NCLB is the way it makes use of assessments. Without performance assessments, our tests are not accurate reflections of what students can do. Nor is there any rational basis for concluding whether poor results (or good results) on these assessments are due to the quality of teaching, or to other factors.

Second Flaw – people are held accountable even though their schools lack the capacity to be successful: NCLB is deflecting time, money and effort from the real issues that must be addressed if our educational institutions are to be able to do a better job of raising student achievement and preparing children for the real world that lies ahead. If you are going to hold people accountable for the results (be it a school, teachers or administrators) it is only fair if they have the resources to get the job done. Professional educators need to be held accountable. But NCLB has not built in a reliable method of holding anyone accountable. It is causing this nation to focus on largely irrelevant measures of student achievement, it is causing people who need to work together in behalf of children to be at each other’s throats, and it is diverting our collective energies from the important task of seeing that every school has the resources and support it needs to be successful.

Lou Dobbs recently interviewed the Secretary of Education and he did an excellent job of focusing the commissioner on reports from around the country of schools that are without textbooks, without other necessary resources, absorbing massive budget cuts and yet they are expected to improve student achievement. Currently, too many of our schools lack the physical facility, certified staff, continuity of administrative personnel, technology, security, textbooks and other resources to effectively deal with the challenges presented by a changing society.

In 1992, Pat Flynn said that “Authentic, performance based assessment will be the engine to drive school restructuring.” He was right then and it is being borne out now. If the federal government wants to be an effective leader in the field of education, it needs to allow performance assessment to be the engine to drive reform.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

It’s no different at the undergraduate level of a university than in a k-12 school: the instructor asks, “Does anyone have any questions?” Either no one responds or the response comes from the same two or three students who are always verbal.

Recently, in an education course, the instructor wanted to force students to think about how they would define “constructivism,” and she wanted them to discuss it before offering her views. (Research indicates we must get students to articulate their perceptions BEFORE confronting them with information that may conflict. Also, we learn best when we engage with ideas and information BEFORE we try to understand theory.)

The instructor was tempted to ask, “Who can give us a good definition of “constructivism?’ However, that approach had failed sufficiently in the past so she decided, instead, to proceed as follows:

1. She walked around the room and quickly motioned people into groups of three. “Take out a sheet of paper and, within five minutes, agree on a definition of “constructivism” that requires only one or two sentences. As long as you make a sincere effort, your grade will not suffer if I don’t agree with your definition,” she said. “You can write down your definition, but I will not ask you to select a reporter. Each person needs to be prepared to share the definition agreed upon in your group of three.”

2. Five minutes later, the instructor began calling on one person in each group to read the definition.

3. Then, she shared a definition she had written while they were working. “I like every definition I’ve heard and I’m not sure mine is better, but here it is,” she said. “If a lesson is based on constructivist theory it will generate understanding by challenging students to think critically with activities that require them to engage with information.”

What was accomplished by this brief activity that the instructor improvised when she realized we had a few extra minutes before the bell?

* While the students were working, the instructor observed and heard their thinking. She learned a lot about the level of understanding of constructivism of many different students – the sharing out at the end just gave her additional data.

* Had she conducted a traditional lesson, telling students how to define constructivism and then asking a few questions of the whole class, many of the students would have had their minds elsewhere. With the possible exception of one or two students who might have responded to her questions she wouldn’t even have known which students were grasping the concept and which weren’t.

* Most importantly, the students were forced to think. It’s hard to escape thinking when only three of you are in a group and you have a specific question to address. Also, it’s easier to “think” when you’re in a small group without the pressure of an intimidating teacher staring at you, awaiting your response to a question you have only a few seconds to answer.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

Teachers who use cooperative activities tend to value the interaction. They recognize that students can often communicate to each other what they may not grasp from the teacher; and they welcome the chance to observe student thinking and to individualize instruction while most students engage, independently, in group work.

What teachers and parents often fail to take into account is that, according to well documented research, we often learn as we talk and because we are talking.

Staff developer Gerry Peters cites brain research that indicates, “When learners are talking, about three times as much of their brain is active as compared with any other learning activity. Talking about a topic helps the learner make sense of the topic and greatly increases the amount of meaning the brain attaches to the topic.”

In a biography of Alfred Hitchcock (McGilligan, Patrick, Harper, Collins, 2003) actor John Houseman says, “Working with Hitch really meant listening to him talk – anecdotes, situations, characters, revelations, and reversals, which he would think up at night and try out on us during the day and . . . the surviving elements were finally strung together into some sort of story in accordance with carefully calculated and elaborately plotted rhythms.”

Houseman’s comments are among many throughout the biography that make it clear Hitchcock had a propensity for bending the ears of his collaborators. I would submit that the major value to Hitchcock was not in the reactions of his peers, which he often ignored, but rather in the thought process that engaged him as he struggled to find articulations for what was percolating inside his mind.

A decade ago I was planning workshops with Nick Donohue, currently the Commissioner of Education in New Hampshire. Nick had previously explained to me how you could divide the way people think and talk into at least two categories:

1. some of us will not speak until we have thought through our response and are sure of what we want to say.

2. others may react immediately, but we are really thinking out loud and may change the direction of our response while we are in mid speech.

Hence, a spouse who is reticent to share thoughts until she is sure of what she wants to say might be slow to respond to her husband’s question, “Where do you think we should spend our vacation?” If he presses her, she might react with irritation, “If you want to know what I think about it, give me some time to think.”

However, the reverse of this is that if the husband is the kind who thinks out loud, the dialogue might go like this:

Wife: Where do you think we should go on our vacation?

Husband: We’ve always enjoyed Vermont; maybe we should go there to ski for the week.

The wife begins to nod in agreement.

Husband: Or, maybe if we went to California we could go surfing.

Wife (frustrated that just as she began to agree with him he changed his mind): “Will you make up your mind? If you want to go to Vermont, say so. If you want to go to California, then say that. But I can’t keep up with someone who doesn’t even know what he wants to do.”

Alfred Hitchcock has left a legacy of films that are a testimonial to his brilliance. Perhaps he refined his thinking while talking. Students need the chance to process what they’ve learned by being forced to articulate what they are learning to others. Therefore, maybe the value of group work goes beyond what students learn from each other and extends to what students learn from themselves.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

In his autobiography, Tony Bennett states, "The best way to win over an audience is to give them something great right off the bat.” If a professional performer needs to strategize how to keep the attention of an audience that has paid money to attend, is it realistic for a teacher to expect to have the undivided attention of students who would not choose to be in school and may have no interest in the topic of the lesson?

Just because a teacher can compel a student to remain in class and be quiet (and even this is not a given in every class), it does not imply that the student will be at all receptive to what the teacher wants the student to learn. Teachers themselves, on a staff development day for which they are paid, are often observed reading a newspaper, grading papers, or indulging in side conversations while ignoring the presenter. If educated adults (teachers) cannot be expected to listen quietly to a presentation when they are paid to attend, why do we expect students to learn in an environment they did not choose and with regard to topics they do not find relevant?

Good teaching requires that we open a student’s mind before we expect it to engage with new information. As an adult, if I attend your presentation and find that it doesn’t hold my interest, I can get up and leave before you have finished. As teachers, we may be able to prevent students from physically leaving the classroom during a boring lesson, but can we stop them from shutting down their minds?

The key word is “communications.” As educators (teachers, administrators, parents, co-workers), we must remember that to teach effectively, we must be effective communicators. The central question is not: “Did I send the message?” The central question is: “Was my message received?” For a professional educator this means changing the question from “Did I teach the curriculum?” to “How much of what I taught did the student learn?” John Dewey asked, “Can there be teaching if there is no learning?”

(The foregoing is from “Applying Standards-Based Constructivism: A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students,” written by Pat Flynn, Don Mesibov, Paul Vermette, and Mike Smith; published by Eye on Education.)

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

The newsletter on “The Wichita Lineman” evoked several thought provoking responses.

* Norm Freimark is the Superintendent of a special act school in Pleasantville, New York, a district serving the needs of students in residential care. He writes:

“Over my 30 plus years in education one of the most memorable moments came while co-leading a world of work discussion group for psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. The discussion was around whether it was more worthy to be an artist or just about anything else. One young man said, ‘Anything you do can be done like you’re an artist if you just put your best creative energy into doing your job.’ Your quote reminded me of that line and it remains in my memory as a pearl of wisdom. Thanks for sharing.”

* Dan Berggren is a popular singer/songwriter who gave an extremely well received benefit performance for the Adirondack Curriculum Project at our 2002 summer conference. He is also a university professor in Fredonia, New York. Dan shared these insights:
“The songwriter example certainly resonates with me. (Eighteen months after I wrote "Sittin' In Your Kitchen" someone pointed out, to my surprise, that it had no rhymes at all.)
“The idea of exceptions to the rules is part of something I learned from a teacher of Tai Chi many years ago; something I apply to my teaching and share with my students in the various stages of their development as communicators.
• “Shu, ha, ri (approximate spellings of the Asian characters) are three stages of learning/living. This philosophy applies to all but I'm told it began with the martial arts.
• Shu is the law; the rules; the way things are done. One must learn this first.
• Ha is the exceptions; we can only understand the exceptions and their application if we know the rules.
• Ri is transcending both. It's the Olympic athlete playing "in the zone." It's experienced jazz musicians improvising. It's the well-practiced poet or artist who feels the muse. It's the master teacher, aware that a teaching moment is unfolding, who leaves the lesson plan behind because the lesson at hand needs to be now.
”Thanks to you and your newsletter for always providing and provoking thought.”

As a middle school ELA teacher many, many years ago, I had two songs I would play for my students and then ask them to identify what was unique about each:

“Darling, you and I and are the reason why a summer sky is blue; and we know why birds in the trees sing melodies, too; and our love will grow from the first hello until the last goodbye; so to sweet romance their is just one answer: you and I.”

This song is all one sentence. My students never guessed the answer, but they enjoyed the challenge and were forced to think about poetry, music, and punctuation. The other song was Moonlight in Vermont - no rhyme, but it sounds so poetic, and is so poetic, that it is easy to assume it rhymes.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

Why do we constantly hear teachers at higher grade levels complain (legitimately) that it is impossible for them to meet their curricular goals for some students because those students have not mastered the skills and conceptual understandings that they are expected to have learned in earlier grades? The most common example is students who reach high school so far below grade level in reading ability that they are not capable of understanding the questions on standardized tests much less giving proof that they know the answers.

This is not the fault of teachers in earlier grades. Many students entering kindergarten, too often are already deficient in the skills and concept knowledge mastered by some of their peers. In this article, I am going to suggest a curriculum alignment process that can guide instructional and assessment practices for all students as well as serving as the basis for the design of an Academic Intervention Services (AIS) plan to support those students who, in our current educational system, seem to fall further behind their peers every year.

First, and very briefly, I will outline a process it will probably take a district several years to complete, but which should be undertaken as a longer term goal. Then, I will outline an abbreviated process that can be put in place almost immediately. You will be the judge of whether my proposal has merit. I think it is the most significant recommendation I have made in my career and would have the greatest bang for the buck if schools would consider it:

The Long-Range (lengthier) Process

I submit that every district should have the following:

1. A list of learning objectives for every course, at every grade level. In many instances, there may be 50 to 100 learning objectives (statements of what students must know, understand, and be able to apply) for each course. This list should be prioritized so that it is easy to identify the three, four, or five skills and/or concepts that teachers feel are most critical to a student’s success in the course.

2. A sample performance assessment activity for every learning objective. This assessment activity should establish whether a student has mastered the learning objective sufficiently to proceed to the next grade level. (A single performance assessment activity can be used to assess multiple learning objectives.)

Admittedly, it will take a substantial amount of time to complete this process which may be why, despite research validating this approach (prioritize learning objectives, and assess for performance) few districts ever make the attempt.

The Shorter Process (for immediate implementation)

1. Identify the few skills and concepts in every discipline, at every grade level, that are absolutely critical to student success. The concepts and skills that have the highest priority, and are the most difficult, should be introduced early in the year so that they can be revisited (spiraled into the curriculum) regularly.

2. Design and use performance assessments to assess student mastery of those skills and concepts identified as priorities. With performance assessment the student either does or does not demonstrate mastery of the skills and concepts the school has deemed essential for success at higher grade levels. (Yes, performance assessments can be time consuming and require teacher training. However, if we limit the use of performance assessments to those skills and concepts we deem critical to student success, then this approach may be manageable.)

3. Focus academic assistance on those students who have difficulty demonstrating mastery of the most important skills and concepts and focus it primarily on the skills and concepts identified as priorities.

The key to what I am suggesting is to utilize performance assessments, but limit them (at least for several years until, as a profession, we are trained and ready to increase their use) to the few foundation skills and concepts that teachers can agree are absolutely essential for student success at a particular grade level in each discipline. Note: This also means abandoning the concept of passing or failing a student for an entire year. Instead, the student continues to matriculate but receives focused, on-going support until the critical concepts and skills have been mastered.

How will this guide Academic Intervention Services?

A plan for Academic Intervention Services (AIS) can be successful, if it is viewed as a process that is comprised of many initiatives – it is not a single program or the assignment of a teacher to a class of students. The goal of an Academic Intervention Services plan must be to identify a student in need, at the earliest possible time, and to provide sufficient academic assistance to enable that student to "catch up" BEFORE the no-win "pass-fail" decision has to be made at the end of the school year. AIS must utilize summers, evenings, and/or Saturdays, if necessary. There must be out-of-the-box thinking. Clearly, strategies of the past are insufficient. Adapting more of the same will promulgate more of the same results.

There is ample research demonstrating that retention does little to improve a student’s ability to keep pace with the curriculum. Therefore, some of the out-of-the-box thinking that is required is that we must stop limiting the decision in elementary school to either passing a student to the next grade level or holding the student back in every discipline. There is an alternative to simply choosing between these two equally unsatisfactory options. Instead, we must follow this simple three-step process:

1. Determine the foundation skills and concepts that students need for success in school and life. (This can be accomplished with skillful facilitation of a group of teachers in each major discipline. It takes only a few minutes. For instance, ask a few ELA teachers what they feel are the essential skills and/or concepts that a student absolutely must master in order to have a chance at success at their grade level. Or, phrase the question like this: “What are the three, four or five skills and/or concepts that you would want students to have mastered by the time they reach your grade level?” Then ask this same question to a group of social studies teachers, then math, then science.)

2. Funnel a substantial portion of a school’s limited resources toward identification of the students who are deficient with any of these foundation skills or who lack knowledge of concepts that are critical to their ability to understand curriculum.

3. Design an Academic Intervention Plan that focuses exclusively on providing whatever support is necessary for students who are deficient in the foundation skills and/or concepts that have been identified as essential to learning in each discipline. These foundation skills and concepts then become the priority learning objectives for all students (not just those in need of academic assistance).

To implement what I am proposing will require a radical paradigm shift for many professional educators. The shift is essentially of our mind-set: we need to separate in our minds (and reporting systems) a student’s level of performance from a student’s cumulative record with regard to completion of homework, behavior in class, scores on quizzes, and grades on end-of-the unit tests.

In most schools, we will pass a student who tries hard, does most of the homework, and passes quizzes and unit tests. This student will pass even if she is unable to demonstrate, through performance, mastery of essential skills and concepts.

Also, in most schools, we do not have a way to indicate that a student has mastered the critical skills and concepts if the student skips school a lot, fails to do homework, and fails most quizzes.

I AM NOT suggesting that we ignore inappropriate behavior, failure to complete assignments, or unwillingness to study for quizzes. However, I am suggesting that in order to make instructional decisions, we need to separate our assessment of a student’s performance from our grading of a student’s behaviors while the student is trying (or not trying) to learn what we are teaching.

We do this in the real world. Don’t some of us criticize the public behaviors and rehearsal antics of a Whitney Houston or a Roseanne Barr while simultaneously acclaiming them as brilliant in their profession? If they were in school we would average all of their behaviors and skills into one grade which would in no way let us know about their levels of expertise.

What a student knows and can demonstrate requires a separate assessment from how a student behaves during the process of learning. A student who behaves properly with regard to classroom decorum, homework, and studying is more likely to learn effectively, but good behavior is not a guarantee that the student will have mastered the skills and conceptual understandings needed to progress satisfactorily in the school system. Conversely, a student may be able to demonstrate mastery of important skills and concepts, but may have an approach to learning that is unacceptable. What is important is that we distinguish, in our reporting process, between what the student can demonstrate and how the student behaves in the learning process. Without making this distinction we have no basis for determining how to instruct.

Few schools identify a narrow range of skills and concepts that are critical to student success at each grade level. Fewer actually access performance with regard to the most important skills and concepts students need to learn. Identification of critical skills and concepts, followed by performance assessment of them would be two good initial steps.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

Copyright (c) 2004, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

SUMMER CONFERENCE

We still have room for a few more teams at the 2004 summer constructivist conference. Participants can come as members of a team or you can sign up as an individual and work on a task that has importance for you. You will have a facilitator and be at a table with others who come, as individuals, to work on their own task. We also have exciting options for children ages 9-18 as well as child care for younger children. Please send inquiries to this e-mail address.

If you haven’t been to one of our conferences, give it a try – we want you to be immersed in a constructivist experience with us.

EXEMPLARY TWO-STEP LESSONS ON THE WEB SITE

The authors of “Applying Standards-Based Constructivism: A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students” are suggesting a simple process for lesson design. Intrigue students (and learn about them) with an Exploratory Phase (step one) and teach through a Discovery Phase (step two) that utilizes an authentic task as a vehicle for student learning. Co-author Pat Flynn has provided sixteen exemplary “Two-Step” lessons for the book and they are all posted on the Institute website at www.learnercentereded.org. The lessons are at elementary and secondary levels in math, ELA, social studies and science. Check them out.

Of course, the authors (Flynn, Mesibov, Vermette and Smith) would prefer that you buy the book. There are two editions, an elementary (already on the market) and a secondary (to be released in a few weeks). All four authors will be participating in the 12th constructivist conference, July 26-30, at St. Lawrence University

DOVER, HERE WE COME!

The authors are privileged to be keynoters at the Delaware Instructional Technology Conference, in Dover, on April 28 and 29. We will conduct break-out sessions both days; keynote with a 60 minute hands-on (what else?) presentation on the integration of technology with constructivist theory the morning of the 29th; and we will do autograph signings of our book on both afternoons. We look forward to seeing some of our friends from Delaware, including several who have become important facilitators at our summer conferences.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

The Institute is currently registering the limited number of teams that will be enrolled for the 2004 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teaches are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

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