Here is the first #edchat session of 2012 and again we are very grateful to @TestSoup for providing the bones of this summary. It seems that everybody had a good holiday and were able to re-charge batteries as this was a fast and furious chat with ideas flying around the twittersphere and we all enjoyed the first chat as a feisty encounter.
Don’t forget to check out the links below. These were shared by participants in the chat and give just a flavour. For more details visit the edchat wiki and the archive.
Some links shared by #edchat participants:
cybraryman1: @tsocko Should be shoutout to all edcamps and TeachMeets #edcamp Wiki http://t.co/A22HQPps #edchat
We have two great blog posts to link on this topic this week. The first is from Peri Nelson @apospirit on her blog. This is a really amazing new way of getting technology into the classroom and the edchat group explored all options during this chat. Peris’ post captures the essence of this. Thank you Peri for your insights. You can find out more about the work Peri and her colleagues do on the blog.
Thanks again to John @TestSoup for this week’s summary.
The topic is one that is very near to our hearts at #edchat and there was great excitement in the chat with lots of ideas, opinions and also resources shared. You can find all of these in John’s summary together with his own take on the chat!
Last Tuesday’s #edchat summary has not only been written by (John Walters) @TestSoup but has also been hosted on the Test Soup blog! This chat introduced these new forms of PD to the very interested and motivated group of educators present at the discussion. Many people wanted to get started and organise their own and there were suggestions of collaborations afoot. This could be the beginning of an explosion of such events. It’s a great summary and captures the mood of the chat as well as the valuable content. Thank you John.
Head over to the Test Soup website to read the summary:
Thanks go to Jeffery Heil for this #edchat summary. I like the easy manner of his prose. This is a topic that we address frequently in #edchat and I think you will agree that Jeffery has produced an excellent resume of the chat. Thank you Jeffery! See Jeffery’s bio at the end of the post
Overview (and my three cents):
This was a very interesting and informative #edchat. The main themes are listed below. The discussion was to a great extent, non-techie, which I think hints at the necessity to establish authentic relationships with our students’ parents. I imagine many teachers would not be surprised by most of the themes that surfaced. Of course it is important to make the parents feel valued and that communication is a major component of successful parent engagement. One of the themes I want to highlight is the importance of understanding the relationship between culture and parent engagement. In the United States, a country where the dominant cultural value is one of equality, I believe many of our parents of non-dominant cultures are often misunderstood at best, and marginalized at worst. Rare is the parent who truly doesn’t want her child to receive a quality education; however, many parents from these cultures had negative school experiences themselves. In many of their minds, a school is a not an inviting place where they feel welcome. As such, it often takes more effort from the school/teacher to truly reach these parents. This is where the dominant cultural value of equality can interfere. “I gave all my parents the opportunity to meet with me in their allotted time.,” says the well-meaning teacher who believes in equality over equity. First, this concept can be foreign to a parent who doesn’t see time as such a valuable commodity. They may not make it to their student’s class precisely at their 3:46pm – 4:06 pm time slot. Such constraints, coupled with past experience, may make a face-to-face meeting difficult. Second, the imbalance of power, either perceived or real, often scares away these parents, especially if we are talking about parents who do not speak English. Teachers need to understand that there is a sociopolitical nature to the parent/teacher dynamic that is often either neglected or simply not understood. In addition, the socioeconomic issue can often cloud the cultural one. This is where community involvement can go a long way to bridge this cultural gap. If a teacher can have a presence in the community, if member of the community can feel valued, if we can change the perception of schools as a place that perpetuates societal inequality, then we might start to see the type of change necessary to truly engage all of our parents.
Here are some of the main themes from the discussion:
Using technology to increase transparency of what is going on at school (blogs, wikis, FB, Twitter, etc.)
importance of making parents feel like their input matters
Having teachers involved in the communities where their students live
Communicate with parents often, especially to relay positive news- avoid negative communication (communicating with parents only when student does something wrong)
Teachers need to be mindful that some parents had negative school experiences and may require more effort to achieve engagement
Schools should consider creating spaces within schools for parents to use technology, to learn/communicate, etc.
school should be inviting for parents– conferences/workshops should have food, space for siblings
teachers/schools need to be aware of the challenge of involving parents who both work
teacher/schools should take a close look at current model for parent engagement – what is working, what is not?
Short, but Tweet: Highlights from the #edchat participants:
This was a very lively discussion. I have chosen to highlight what I believe to be both the positive aspects of how we might increase teacher engagement and some of the key obstacles of which teachers/schools may not be aware.
@cnesbitt1811: make use of online resources such as FB and possibly dedicated website areas were parents can receive support #edchat
@hadleyjf: Teach parents about the tech tools that their kids are learning, get them to respond to sts. blog posts #edchat
@CTuckerEnglish: Parents who can “see” what is happening in the classroom get more involved = increased communication & transparency are needed #edchat
@K_shelton: I make it a class policy, when possible, student must CC parents on all email, invite to all google docs, and to e-portfolio #edchat
@tomwhitby: I would replace those worthless back to school nights w/workshops for parents on topics to help their kids. Hmwk/Study/Tech/Bullying.#Edchat
@csteenst: #edchat- Help parents help kids by making an online presence with your stuff and links to help explain classwork- make them learners too!
@ShellTerrell: Parent engagement means parents get to be part of the decision process when it comes to their children’s learning #Edchat
@Joe_Mazza: Now matter how cool, convenient and efficient using technology for communicating is, it will never replace face to face dialogue #edchat
@TestSoup: @FinEdChat Keyword: “weekly” — a parent shouldn’t only hear about their kid’s progress once every quarter. Info is key. #edchat JJW
@ShellTerrell: Just like we dont give up on kids who dont seem engaged, we shouldnt give up on their parents #Edchat
@Caplee62: Our parent conference day was not a day but a week and more. & tchrs went 2 their jobs/homes if necessary to make positive contact. #edchat
@chrismayoh: Allow parents to attend ‘drop in’ mornings/afternoons where they can come and see what happens in your classroom day to day #edchat
@EmmanuelleEN: Some parents are terrified to get involved in schools : feel inadequate, or schools bring bad memories to them. #Edchat
@jogyouon: We ask parents about key issues in school, publish overall findings and change if necessary – so important to listen! #edchat
@drdouggreen: @ShellTerrell Obstacles: Bad memories of their school days, Time, distance, interest, intimidation by school staff, #Edchat
@chrismayoh: Go OUTSIDE in the mornings to greet students AND families. Anything you don’t NEED to do as part of your job is always appreciated #edchat
@kelrjen: What if teachers became more visible in the community OUTSIDE of school #edchat
@doc_crawford: Transparency re: info, pedagogy,& expectations are also key to parent involvement #Edchat
@wmchamberlain: I have a lot of parents that had bad experiences at school when they attended. School is not their favorite place. #edchat
@cybraryman1: Plan hands-on workshops for parents (provide refreshments, child care) on how their children use tech in school #edchat
@lindayollis: Great way to involve parents in their child’s education: Family Blogging Month! http://t.co/R6AAfAIW #Edchat #elemchat
@shellterrell: In this post, @Larryferlazzo talks about schls distinguishing btwn parent engagemt & involvemt. Let’s engage http://t.co/XISW7uQn #Edchat
@WatchKnowLearn: I video my centers weekly and post to my online classroom.Parents are excited to see what’s going on in class. http://t.co/SOMnfag0 #edchat
@ShellTerrell parents ought to be wild (in GOOD way 🙂 about student #PORTFOLIOS #EDCHAT http://t.co/hduCVKRG #education #domoreedu…
@cybraryman1: @TestSoup Yes, must start with best way to communicate. My Parent Communication page: http://t.co/zvwQ21nJ #edchat
I would ask that the following question is added to the poll next week:How can educators learn more about the deeper cultural elements of their non-dominant students?@jheil65
I have been a teacher with the San Diego County Office of Education’s Juvenile Court and Community Schools (JCCS) for over 13 years. For eight years, I taught high school in a self-contained shelter for homeless teens in downtown San Diego. Currently, I am a technology resource teacher where I work with JCCS students and teachers to integrate technology into their curriculum. I am deeply committed to issues of educational equity and social justice in schools. In 2005, I was selected as a Distinguished Teacher in Residence at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), where I taught full-time in the School of Education during the two years I was “on loan” from JCCS. I still teach at CSUSM as an adjunct professor, where I teach courses on diversity and inclusion as well as educational technology.
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If you have never participated in an #Edchat discussion, these take place twice a day every
Tuesday on Twitter. Over 400 educators participate in this discussion by just adding #edchat
to their tweets. For tips on participating in the discussion, please check out these posts!
Thanks again to Sarah Fudin for this #edchat summary. I’m sorry that we have got a bit behind with these but should be caught up by the end of the week.
Thank you again Sarah for yet another insightful piece! See Sarah’s bio at the end of the post.
Not being a teacher at this current time in my life, it’s hard for me to give the most validated response to this question, but I’ll try. From my short time teaching in the past and my current time building a community of teachers, I’ve found that the learner is in charge of the learning. Formative assessment that keeps the learner involved the whole way through seems like the best type of assessment — self-assessment, highly involved feedback and many chances to measure improvement seem to me to be of top importance. As far as grading formative assessment for the overall average, I’m not sure I agree — different types of assessment for different learners will most likely yield drastically different results, some weighing in more important than others.
These were some of the main points discussed
What exactly is formative assessment? — Feedback given to students to improve their understanding.
Explore many types of formative assessments: stop lights, targets, short answers, hands-up, interactive whiteboards, written assessments, self assessments, wikis, and polling.
Monitoring learning throughout a lesson is important — modify if students are not understanding.
Formative assessment is ongoing not just something you do at the end of a term or year.
Keep in mind that not all students learn the same way or react the same way to certain assessment.
Poll anywhere AKA polls via mobile devices are a great way to bring learning outside the classroom as well as get some immediate feedback.
Getting your students to think about the feedback and not the grade can be challenging, but it’s important.
Schools can help teachers use formative assessment to meet student needs — a schools outlook, flexibility, and culture can encourage an atmosphere where effective and variable formative assessment are possible.
Allowing students to set goals and then talking with them, not at them, about your feedback and theirs may be an effective form of formative assessment.
These were a few tweets that caught my eye:
@jessievaz12: ongoing, observational, exploratory, student focused, bite-sized (in response to adjectives to describe formative assessment)
@weisburghm: assessment of learning, for learning, and as learning. Formative is the last two, right?
@FinEdChat: What about using ‘poll everywhere’ so the students can be engaged using
their phones? A great method for student collaboration
@west4me: I think it is fine to grade formative assessments, but do you use the grade for you or them?
@mingchri Yes, assessments are not just for students, but for teachers to see if concepts were achieved by students
@rliberni: polls on mobiles are gr8 for this, finding out quickly what stds have grasped & what needs reviewing
@CoachCreach: I use twtpoll.com for FA. It allows me to gain a better understanding of the studts learning process and grades me on my teaching.
@CTuckerEnglish: Building in time to reflect is key to growth & dev. Most kids don’t slow down to think about feedback.
@delta_dc: We need to find ways to support learners’ ability to take responsibility for their own formative assessment.
@TestSoup: Formative helps you get there. Summative analyzes performance there.
@CTuckerEnglish: I love showing students the self-editing I do on my own writing-red pen explosion-so they see all writers need to edit
@chiyanlam: Grading is about applying a value judgement; not the same thing as providing feedback and “marking” an assignment.
@tomwhitby: If Formative assessment is for the tchr to see how much kids get it in order to adjust the lesson,why assign a grade to the student?
@cybraryman1: No grades for #edchat but thanks for your outstanding participation & my wonderful co-moderators @rliberni @ShellTerrell & @tomwhitby
I would ask that the following question is added to the poll next week:
What makes someone a great teacher candidate? — is it their schooling, their background, or their experiences?
Sarah Fudin is a Community Manager for the University of Southern California’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, which provides aspiring teachers the opportunity to earn an online teaching degree. USC also partners with Teacher Certification Map to offer information on teacher salary by state. Outside of work Sarah enjoys running, reading and Pinkberry frozen yogurt.
If you have never participated in an #Edchat discussion, these take place twice a day every Tuesday on Twitter. Over 1,000 educators participate in this discussion by just adding #edchat to their tweets. For tips on participating in the discussion, please check out these posts!
This week’s #edchat summary has been beautifully created by Ian Simpson and generously hosted on his own blog. I don’t want to steal his thunder and so I urge you all to head on over there via this link
This edchat topic was always going to be a tough one and it aroused a lot of passion among the participants. I cannot think of a better edchatter to write this summary than LaRon Carter and he has produced a fantastic post which gets right to the heart of this topic. He poses more questions than answers and these are exactly what we discovered when we tried to tackle this massive issue. LaRon has shared some great videos to give you further food for thought and I encourage you to follow him and check out the web links in his bio at the end of the post. Thank you LaRon for a post that gives us all so much food for thought!
The foundation of a question searching for answers that connect solutions to challenges faced when crossing the bridge of standardized test scores sounds academic. Factor in hauling a backpack loaded with cultural differences and the pains of poverty and educators are as overwhelmed as the students taking the test. This EdChat topic solicits feedback from educators on how to deal with it. The conversation was only able to scratch the surface of solutions offering temporary relief to a much bigger set of systemic issues.
Here are some of the main themes from the discussion:
Worrying about poverty because of the tests is a bit horrifying
Correcting poverty is a moral thing to do
Teaching as a culturally sensitive pedagogic method
Success happens when teamwork happens between all stakeholders
Home visits promote healthy relationships early on
Teaching to the test is just plain bad practice
No food – No learning – Stressed teachers teaching test prep – No Learning – No win
Do you save all of a few or a tiny fraction of all?
Here is a selection of some of the comments:
@davidwees: The topic for today assumes that we should be dealing with gaps in poverty & culture BECAUSE of tests, which is absolutely false. #edchat
@leahmacvie: #edchat fun fact: Finland got rid of state-mandated tests and replaced them with highly trained teachers+ problem solving assessments.
@TeacherSabrina: Part of prob is that tests are designed by people good at taking them. Will always favor their learning styles/ways of performing. #edchat
@harrelldewayne: @davidwees #edchat the word “test” will never show “true education,” it enables a school & person 2 feel a since of accomplishment
@ericconti: A start would be to provide high quality early childhood education for all children. #edchat
@CTuckerEnglish: Programs like AVID for 1st gen college bound students are supporting these students. We need more support for these students #edchat
@teachingwthsoul: My whole teaching/admin career based in schools w/high poverty & ELL Ss. Our scores soared! Worked as a team w/ all stakeholders. #edchat
@jessievaz12: RT @TeacherSabrina: .@davidwees @drdouggreen If a test consistently shows cultural diffs, it’s testing culture not academics. Throw it out & start over! #edchat
@kstansberry: Big question for educators: do we try to change culture or help students assimilate to dominant culture #edchat
@drdouggreen: @davidwees I think we should focus on opportunities for poor kids. The war on poverty started in the 60’s and hasn’t worked so well. #edchat
@TeacherSabrina: @drdouggreen @davidwees Actually it was working well until its gains began to be reversed under Reagan. #edchat Our greatest success w/ +
@ICTwiz: @cybraryman1 But standardised tests benefit ONLY a certain type of pupil. More formative assessments need to happen #edchat
@tomwhitby: If we recognize Poverty as a critical element in a failing education system, why is this not at the forefront of reform? #edchat
@ShackKyle: RT @tomwhitby: If poverty is a prime force in edu failure, how will any teachers feel supported when their rating/job depends on test scores? #Edchat
@CTuckerEnglish: More we break down barriers between students = more likely they are to communicate, collaborate & engage w/each other RT @rliberni: #edchat
@Kerry_EasyBib: @tomwhitby Poverty isn’t at the forefront of edreform b/c its the 1 issue even more seemingly insurmountable than edreform #edchat
@jessievaz12: For me, culture seems to be less of an issue bc we support international minded view. Looking at all cultures & perspectives. #edchat
@tomwhitby: If the culture within poverty areas is also counter to Edu that magnifies the problem freezing some schools in the failing zone. #Edchat
@teachingwthsoul: In high poverty schools, must meet the families where they are. Then build! Home visits/out reach were powerful tools. Care,support. #edchat
@cybraryman1: RT @weisburghm: School leadership is *so* important in driving achievement in schools serving poverty areas #edchat
@jgmac1106: It would also help if the teachers in high poverty schools looked like and shared experiences of their students #noteasy… On more macro level high poverty schools need to become community centers with open libraries, breakfast, TESOL adult ed, health #edchat
@CTuckerEnglish: I use my online discussions to present release questions then have students discuss them & brainstorm strategies for solving. #edchat
@rliberni: @jgmac1106 many schools here serve breakfast to kids some parents go to work very early #edchat
@weisburghm: Let’s develop more Ss as peer leaders, and let them teach and lead as part of their education #edchat
@TJwolfe_: @teacherdebra Would be great to have more, split up responsibility between Admin and teachers, and visit more students at home #edchat
@38rg: When students aren’t engaged,can we honestly say they’re learning?
@jessievaz12: AMEN SISTER!=>RT @prlowe91: There is no need for teaching to the test if students are taught how to think & question. #edchat
@prlowe91: @weisburghm Totally get that single moms have it tough. We need to find a way to connect. #edchat
Shared my thoughts on good education & the importance of diversity in thought here: http://t.co/ikKcZVd1 Have to go, but great #edchat-ting! Via @TeacherSabrina
http://laroncarter.com LaRon Carter creator of http://twitter.com/K12Live is an education behavioural strategist and author of Stop Crying in the Restroom [it ain’t that deep]: A Guide to Your Best Year Teaching With Smart K12 Goal Setting Methods. Follow Carter “The Guest Teacher” @laroncarter http://twitter.com/laroncarter on Twitter
New to Edchat?
If you have never participated in an #Edchat discussion, these take place twice a day every Tuesday on Twitter. Over 1,000 educators participate in this discussion by just adding #edchat to their tweets. For tips on participating in the discussion, please check out these posts!
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