THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: Parent Involvement; Remembering Louis Mihalyi

Date: April 20, 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 16

Louis Mihalyi wrote a column for the Watertown Times on insects and nature in recent years. I knew Louis in the 1970s when he was a union negotiator for the South Lewis Teachers Association. He was also an outstanding secondary science teacher, and a wonderful human being - the kind of role model all parents wants for their children.

Louis Mihalyi passed away last month and it caused me to reflect on an activity he shared with me many years ago that I continue to pass along to teachers and administrators who are trying to make connections with parents.

As a parent we become accustomed to only hearing from school personnel when they have something they want from us. If I say that most communications from schools to parents are self-serving, I do not mean this in a negative light. Most communications to parents are for the purpose of letting parents know what they can do to make the job of the school easier and more effective in order to help the children.

Nevertheless, the best public relations is the communications to the home that simply provides a service without asking for anything in return. It was a strategy that Mr. Mihalyi implemented that caught my attention. Each year he would make certain that all parents received a picture of their child, in the mail, at least once during the school year. Early in the school year he brought his Polaroid camera to school (I'm dating myself and Louis) and took group pictures of two to five students at a time as they were engaged in activity. Over the course of the year, he would mail the pictures to parents with a very brief note with a personalized signature.

In this day and age of advanced technology, the time involved for a teacher would be even less than it was for Mr. Mihalyi. If a building principal wanted to initiate this as a school-wide project, he/she could find ways to expedite the process by having office staff handle most of the little work involved and sending a photographer into class, once a year, of any teacher willing to do this. In fact, digital pictures and e-mail could make the task even simpler although a picture and note in the mail is still more personal and effective.

Paul Vermette makes it a point to be sure that every student has a success experience early in a class lesson in order to motivate them to stay with the activities throughout the period. Gerry Peters carries this concept to an even greater extreme by maintaining that success experiences alone can motivate students to work harder. Louis Mihalyi recognized the value of helping people (adults and students) to feel good about themselves throughout his career.

Louis, you will be missed, but you live on through who and what you were to generations of children and their parents - and to me!

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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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2005, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: This Issue Does Not Exist

Date: April , 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 15

Due to an error in counting by this writer, there is no Volume 8, Issue 15
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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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2007, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.


The Institute is currently registering teams for the 2007 summer constructivist conference, July 23-27, at Grand Island, New York, within sight of Niagara Falls. Don't miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.orgor, e-mail a request for information.

THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: Generation YES, Technology, and Student Ownership

Date: April 6, 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 14

Sylvia Martinez is President of Generation YES, a company that tries "to make stuff that inspires people to teach and learn in ways that are authentic and engaging." In a current article on the Generation YES blog, Ms. Martinez addresses recent headlines citing a U.S. Department of Education report: "Education Technology Isn't Helping." Ms. Martinez challenges us:

"C'mon people, let's speak the truth and make meaningful distinctions between educational software that pretends to replace teachers and technology that . . .supports a learning community. I hope everyone out there who is doing great stuff with kids and computers speaks up in the face of these headlines and shows what "educational technology" really means."

Never one to shy from the challenge to speak up, here goes. Since the Institute was founded eleven years ago, our position has been clear: technology in service to instructional practice enhances effective teaching. I continually let my university students know that a PowerPoint (as an example) is good if it posts directions during a student activity, summarizes key points, or illustrates graphically or artistically information that some may find difficult to understand from the spoken or written word. However, if a PowerPoint is simply used as a more attractive way to present lecture information then it has limited value.

I have seen students sitting at computers where they are challenged by clever software design to think critically and practice skills and concepts in a way that furthers their learning. On the other hand, I have also seen students working with software that has them mindlessly going through drill and kill methods to enhance memorization of facts that have no meaning to them and will not be retained beyond the time when the test is taken, if that long.

While surfing the Generation Yes blog, I was particularly impressed with the statement of its beliefs: We believe the missing component is student involvement, student voice, and student ownership of the process. When students are actively involved in the process of planning and implementing education, they become invested in the process. They become key stakeholders in improving education for themselves and their peers.

We focus on technology as a vehicle for this, because technology is a powerful conduit for constructive, collaborative learning, and the connection that today's youth feel for this new technology-driven world.
We must stop thinking of school as something that happens to students, with all the information, learning and experiences flowing from "us" to "them". Instead, students should be empowered to be agents of change, not objects of change. Teachers who are expert facilitators, guides, and co- learners are key to this process.

You can locate the Generation Yes blog at http://blog.genyes.com

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Illustrations by Matt Newton

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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2007, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: Negotiating the contract with Your Students

Date: March 31, 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 13

A recent newsletter on "contracts" between students and teachers elicited this response from Susan Hibbard who is in the Department of Measurement and Research at the University of South Florida, College of Education.

I think the learning contracts are great. For high school students especially in 11th and 12th grade, I have found the contracts useful to have the students discuss what weights each course component should hold in the calculation of the final grade. The approach is less behavioral based, but made to promote self-directed learning.

For instance:
Tests ?%
Quizzes ?%
Homework ?%
Participation ?%
etc. (as always, the teacher guides them to reasonable approximations)

The conversation for homework is always interesting because the students often feel it would be nice to be able to count on a high score for homework so they want it to have enough weight to help them out, but then of course it would require them to actually do the homework. As the year goes on, especially for the students with senior-itis (even 11th graders will usually develop this mid year), the students are reminded that THEY CHOSE the direction of their learning.

This is also useful for undergraduates and graduate students.

My thanks to Susan Hibbard for these thoughts. It occurs to me that the teacher could also generate an excellent dialogue asking students how they think their "class participation" should be assessed.

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Illustrations by Matt Newton

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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2005, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: EFFECTIVE TEACHERS INTEND TO . . . .

Date: March 23, 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 12

One of our best received newsletters (approximately a year ago) defined "17 Intentions of an Effective Teacher." Quite a few administrators and teachers indicated they had posted the "17 Intentions" throughout their school or distributed them to staff. One assistant superintendent said he had sent the "Intentions" to all building principals for distribution and to every student teacher.

What follows are the "17 Intentions," edited and re-formatted to be even more reader-friendly. They were based on observations of Niagara University professor Paul Vermette as he designed and taught lessons in K-12 classrooms. The "17 Intentions" are included in a book to be published in July by Pat Flynn, Paul Vermette, Mike Smith and yours truly.

The Seventeen Instructional Intentions of an Effective Teacher find expression in a teacher's classroom practices:

The Foundation
(underlying classroom practices)

1. Safe and nurturing environment - do you create a classroom environment where students feel free to think critically and express their views without fear?
2. Public speaking - do you structure lessons that require and nurture public speaking, in pairs and small groups as well as in front of the entire class?
3. Opportunities for success - do you provide every student with frequent opportunities to experience "success"?
4. Validation of student work and responses - do you let each student know when his or her efforts are praiseworthy?

The Exploratory Phase
(the beginning of the lesson or unit)

5. Grab attention - do you begin class in a manner likely to encourage students to look forward to what comes next?
6. Prepare students to engage - do you create activities that focus student thinking, excite their imaginations, and prepare them to meet and exceed the learning standards.
7. Assess and access prior knowledge - do you design activities that will help students (and you) to access and assess their prior knowledge, interests, and needs?

The Discovery Phase
(The part of the lesson in which students learn and demonstrate they are meeting the learning objectives of the lesson.)

8. The learning objectives - do you clearly state the one, two, or three specific things you want your students to learn? Have you cast these specific objectives in terms of what your students will understand, relate to, perform or create? Are the objectives aligned with appropriate learning standards?
9. Authentic task - do you frame learning tasks that are as authentic as possible and that will allow students to demonstrate their skill with or understanding of the learning objective(s)?
10. Ownership - do you create learning tasks that enable students to feel pride and assume responsibility for their own learning?
11. Options - do you offer students optional ways to accomplish the learning task, and therefore reach the learning objectives(s)?
12. Multiple intelligences - do you offer students frequent opportunities to utilize their stronger intelligences (recognizing that there are going to be times when they will also have to rely on their weaker ones)?
13. Appropriate resources - do you make sure that the resources necessary to accomplish the assigned student-centered activities are available, or can be made available, to students?
14. Interventions - do you look for opportunities (teachable moments) to intervene either in response to student questions or in reaction to student work, by "working the room" while students are engaged in an activity?
15. Cognitively rich questions - do you seize every opportunity: to intervene in student work with questions that require students to think critically; to phrase task questions to require critical thinking; and to require students to create their own cognitively rich questions that create disequilibrium?
16. Reflection - do you, during a learning experience, create opportunities for students to think about their thinking, to assess their progress and their decisions thus far? Do you, at the end of each day's lesson, provide students with a brief closure activity that elicits evidence of something students have learned as a result of the lesson?
17. Assessment measures - do you utilize multiple forms of assessment to judge student performance, including effective use of rubrics? Is instructional improvement the primary reason you assess students? Is teacher observation structured to be the most meaningful form of assessment?

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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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2005, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: REFLECTION is CRITICAL to the LEARNING PROCESS

Date: March 9, 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 10

In a previous newsletter, I paraphrased Terry Mazany, Director of the Education Initiative for the Chicago Community Trust, who has stated that reflection is as much a part of the learning process as content introduction or any other aspect of teaching.
Think about Terry's observation. Reflect upon it.
If a teacher really believes what research suggests about reflection than wouldn't she be providing opportunities for student reflection in almost every lesson?
Here are two thoughts to reflect on if you really believe the research on reflection:

1. Reflection can and should occur at times in a lesson other than only at the end.
2. Many teachers include a reflective question or two in their lesson plan for the end of a lesson, but then when other activities run over it is the reflection that is omitted. My suggestion is that you not fall victim to conducting a lesson the way a reporter writes a newspaper article. In other words, just because something comes last in a lesson doesn't mean it is least important and should be skipped if time doesn't allow. Skip something else, but make sure you get to the reflection.

Here's a thought: utilize students to create reflective opportunities. Teachers are often looking for ways to challenge some of the quicker students during group work when one group finishes a task sooner than others. Why not ask a few students who have some extra time to create three meaningful questions to pose to the class when the activity is completed?

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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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2005, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

TOPIC: A "Space-Age" Strategy for Student Recall

Date: March 9, 2007 Newsletter Edition: Volume 8, Issue 10

Jim Thompson is a California-based Emmy award winning producer who is currently utilizing his talents to produce educational videos, often in collaboration with William Glasser. We were privileged that Jim joined us at our summer conference a few years ago.
Last week's illustrated newsletter on multiple intelligences elicited this wonderful story of "practical application" from Jim

Hi Don,

This issue brought to mind a video I did with Sue Teele (The Multiple Intelligences School: A Place for All Students to Succeed).
I was curious about how multiple intelligences theory could be applied in a real classroom situation so had asked her how she would use it to teach spelling. She said that she had recently visited a classroom and was asked to help a girl who was having trouble remembering how to spell "rocket". As a part of her visit to that class, she had tested the children for multiple intelligence preferences and found that this particular girl had a strong spatial intelligence. So, she asked her to draw a picture of a rocket.
Then she gave the girl the correct spelling of "rocket" and asked her to write the word in the picture as many times as she wanted. (Sue said she even uses this technique for words with abstract meanings. The drawing only has to make sense to the child.)
Then, once the student completed the drawing and had added the word, she asked her to turn the paper over. Then she asked the girl if she could see the picture in her mind. The girl said she could. Then Sue asked her if she could see the word 'rocket" as well. The girl said she could. Sue asked her to spell the word and she did with no problem at all.
Sue showed me the girl's drawing (see attached). When Sue asked the student why she wrote the word four times around the rocket, the student responded she did that so that the word represented the whole rocket and not just part of it. Interesting.

I think Matt's illustrations are a great addition to your newsletter. The only problem is that since I am a spatial learner, I will now have your ruminations forever etched in my mind. Well, I guess that's a plus.

Take care,

Jim

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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. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2005, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.