October 9, 2017

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Karcher 2017-2018 School Calendar

Students of the week!!!!!!! 
(Running slide show) 

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Kudos

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• Kudos to our entire staff for your work and flexibility with fall MAP testing!  
• Thank you to the staff who were able to assist with our home cross country meet this past Monday at BHS!  
• Thank you to those staff members who assisted, in the rain, for the HS homecoming game this past Friday!  
• Thanks again to Jack Schmidt, Eric Sulik, and Wendy Zeman for your work this coming week and your efforts with our Cooper/Waller visit.  Thank you as well to our counseling staff, Steve Berezowitz and Becky Hoesly, for your help during the extended advisories this week working with Ryan Heft and I and our students about building positive relationships!  

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Information/Reminders...

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• Extended Advisory all week!  
• There will be no iTime rotations this week as students will be staying in their advisories throughout the week.  Please utilize the below links to assist with the plan for advisory time:  
• Lesson Plan Link
• Karcher Schedule and Teacher Parings
• Please look at the above links and note that this Friday we will be using the Afternoon Assembly Schedule located on the first page of our Karcher Calendar - bell schedules link. 
• Monday - Thursday one house will attend a discussion with admin and our counselors focusing on building positive relationships.  Note... we changed which house reports when based on the number of students missing for the student council field trip.  Below is the rotation.  
• Girls should report to the library while boys will report to the auditorium.  
• Monday:   Onyx House
• Tuesday:  Diamond House (Onyx students who attended the field trip should attend as well)
• Wednesday: Silver House
• Thursday:  Hive House
• Staff do not need to also attend.  Please just make sure your group gets to the correct locations!  
• Applied Academic's week for emails.  
• Please discuss at your team time which 8th grade hour and which 7th grade hour you will be sending emails home so that parents/guardians do not receive three emails for each of their student's academic periods.  Then during that period to email home about all of their academic periods but in one email.  
• Monday, October 9 - Student Council Field Trip to Camp Maclean.  
• Brad Ferstenou shared an email with the list of students who should be attending.  
• Monday, October 9 - Music students will report to the auditorium for a short presentation during 1st hour.  
• Monday, October 9 - District Secondary Curriculum Committee meeting.  
• 3:30 - 5:00 Karcher Library 
• Wednesday, October 11 - PLC focus will be on your essential skills.  

• Reminder... Parent/Teacher Conferences are on October 16 from 4:00 - 7:00.  
• These conferences will be open conferences held in your classrooms.  
• Jodi Borchart and myself will be in the library for parent/guardian meetings at both 5:00 and 6:00 discussing social media concerns with parents!  
• Please remember to remind parents/guardians about conference as you email them through Skyward this week. 

Pictures from this past week!

Great article debate taking place in Mr. Sulik's iTime!

Students in Ms. Jorgenson's iTime creating their own linear equations in order to solve the problem given. 

Students in Ms. Longoria's ELA class working on citing textual evidence and summarizing an article.

 Students art work from Ms. Pelnar's class displayed in the hallway... awesome creativity!

Students in Mr. Yopp's STEM class learning about rockets.  Their first rocket is with clay, a straw, and paper working on the design process.

Students in Ms. Weis's iTime focusing on analyzing data and making inferences.

Check out our awesome Student's of the Week displays by the main office and by the art display on the 7th grade floor!  Kudos to our student council students for your time and creativity! 

Continuation from last week... REALLY GOOD READ and centered around higher-order thinking and student engagement.  

Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner, 2nd Edition

by Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele

The Problem with Group Brainstorming

The concept of the Ripple begins with each student individually responding to a prompt (aka the initial plunk of a pebble). It can be tempting to start by skipping the first step and instead asking students to simply get into groups to work out the solution to a higher-order prompt. This is often due to the belief that group brainstorming provides a scaffold for students, rather than expecting that students be able to individually tackle higher-order prompts. After all, if one student's thoughts are helpful, then four students' thoughts must be at least four times as helpful, right? However, despite its widespread acceptance, the effectiveness of group brainstorming is not supported by research.

Research tells us that free-flowing group brainstorming can actually stifle creativity. When students are working in groups, each idea that is posed ends up setting a course for similar ideas to be pursued, and inhibits the ability for individual group members to entertain dissimilar, or even better, ideas. According to Jonah Lehrer (2012), the term brainstorming originated from a chapter in a 1948 surprise best-selling book by Alex Osborn entitled Your Creative Power. In Osborn's book, a brainstorm was described as making use of many people attacking a problem. Though the idea took off and is still used in businesses, boardrooms, and classrooms, Lehrer's review of the literature on group brainstorming points to evidence that it actually does not work. According to research psychologist Keith Sawyer, "Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas" (cited in Lehrer, 2012). In terms of quality, brainstorming doesn't work, either. Studies actually show that students working alone and then pooling their ideas is a much more effective and efficient use of a group's brainpower. Not only are there more ideas, but the ideas are also deemed to be of higher quality.

Calling on Someone Should Be the Last Thing You Do

We've often heard it said that there is safety in numbers. However, where classroom interactions are concerned, each student should first bring something of value to the group. In fact, when it comes to higher-order questions, calling on someone is fine. In sequence, however, it should be the last thing you do. Wait until every student has processed and responded to your higher-order prompts before posing your prompts in a whole-group setting. Not only does this help keep each student accountable for processing the higher-order prompts, but it also enriches the groups' experiences by increasing the diversity of ideas presented and the quality of the groups' refinements of those ideas.

Whenever you notice that you are using a phrase like "Who can tell me …?" or "Does anyone know …?" stop, and ask yourself if there is a better way, particularly if your question is an important one (see Figure 2.3). In terms of rippling higher-order prompts, calling on someone is fine, but sequentially, it should be the last thing that you do. A reminder poster of Figure 2.3 is included in Appendix B. Let it cause you to pause whenever you're tempted to start off with a traditional Q&A.

Figure 2.3. Reminder of What Not to Ask!

How Long Can Students Pay Attention?

Most likely you've heard the common notion that the typical student's attention span is about 10 to 15 minutes long. That is a well-accepted assumption, but research has called that belief into question. Bunce, Flens, and Neiles (2010) looked at 186 college students' self-reported levels of attention in college chemistry classes. Using electronic clickers, students indicated their attention lapses, along with the perceived duration of the lapses. Surprisingly, the researchers found that attention lapses occur several times within a 10- to 15-minute span, for brief periods of time (1 minute or less), even as early as a "settling in" period that takes place about 30 seconds into the lesson, followed by another attention lapse about 4 or 5 minutes into the lesson. Their study did not support the common notion that attention lapses occur every 10 to 15 minutes. Wilson and Korn's (2007) review of the literature on student attention also found no basis for the assertion that a typical student's attention span is from 10 to 15 minutes. Like Bunce, Flens, and Neiles, they found a great degree of variability with regard to attention. In fact, lapses in student attention likely occur more randomly and more often than conventional beliefs suggest. The implications are important. We can't assume that students walk away with the same knowledge, even if they were exposed to the same content. Random lapses in attention require the need for constant checks for understanding, so that gaps in students' understanding can be addressed.

Not surprisingly, Bunce, Flens, and Neiles found that students' attention was more likely to wander during less interactive activities, such as lecturing. The longer the lecture, the more lapses in attention occurred. "As many predict, student attention is higher during non-lecture pedagogies such as demonstrations and clicker questions" (p. 1442). Student attention also seemed to be reawakened to the content of the subsequent lecture after a nonlecture method was used. "Students report significantly lower attention lapses during lecture segments immediately following a demonstration or clicker question than they did in comparable length lecture segments prior to the use of these pedagogies" (p. 1442). This leads us to believe that the use of interactive nonlecture pedagogies, such as TPTs, can capture student attention and keep student attention even when the TPT is followed by brief periods of lecture. This is an important concept that can help us create more engaging lessons. Lecture segments should be sandwiched in between moments of accountability and interaction.

Though Bunce, Flens, and Neiles's study was conducted with college students, the implications of their findings have far-reaching implications for K–12 education. If students in college have numerous attention lapses that cast serious doubt on the overestimation of typical attention spans lasting 10 to 15 minutes, we can expect that the attention lapses of children and adolescents will be similar or even more frequent. Anyone who has spent time with children and adolescents knows that it is unreasonable to assume that they have longer attention spans than college students. In light of the participants, the findings of this study hold even greater significance when teaching children. They suggest that teachers should "strive to improve student attention by using student-centered pedagogies at different times throughout the lecture, not only to decrease student attention lapses but also to increase student attention during the lectures that follow the use of such pedagogies" (p. 1442). Something as simple as having students complete a Quick-Write can cause them to refocus, analyze, and synthesize their learning, as well as engage students for the follow-up directed teaching. Additionally, in our experiences, students are aware of which teachers will be requiring evidence of engagement during the lesson. An 8th grade student we interviewed explained her need for accountability when she told us, "I drift off a lot. Like, one of the classes I go to I call 'my daydreaming class.' When I go in there, I daydream. But in Ms. Keely's class you can't daydream, because if you do, you're gonna miss something important, and at the end of class she asks you to write about what we went over in class, so if you were daydreaming, she'll know you weren't paying attention. So that helps" (Himmele, Himmele, & Potter, 2014, p. 99).

When Students Shine

It is probable that one of the greatest benefits of TPT-infused lessons focused on higher-order thinking is that the students whom you would not expect to shine will start shining right alongside the rest of their peers. Meghan Babcock noticed this in her TPT-infused unit:

It's been neat to see, because the students in learning support [with mild disabilities] will usually wait for all of the other kids to talk. And through using TPTs, I can see what they're thinking, through their Quick-Writes and just knowing that they have a thought, through Thumbs-Up When Ready. (See TPTs in Chapter 4.)

Keely Potter and Meghan Babcock's reading class began as a mandatory class for some students during the last month of school. But because of a mix-up in scheduling, the final week become voluntary. Potter and Babcock made arrangements with other teachers to take students who chose to complete the unit. We expressed surprise that two-thirds of the students continued to come to the reading class, even though it had been made voluntary and the final school year wrap-ups and celebrations were occurring at the same time in their homerooms. When the students were asked why they volunteered to come to the reading class, here's what a few of them wrote:

• "Because it's fun, and it really helps me think deeper."
• "I loved how you had to figure stuff out [in the book] without it being a mystery."
• "Because I wanted to keep reading and find out what happened. For me, that is something I don't do, but I did!"
• "I wanted to finish the book! And I really loved this class. It was so much fun, and it showed me how to connect and learn more about books."
• "I feel comfortable with this group. Also, I want to keep learning about how to dig deeper so I enjoy books more."

In the student surveys, students expressed a clear note of pride in realizing how they were developing in their own ability to dig deeper. This "digging deeper" was facilitated through the use of TPTs that were created to specifically ensure higher-order thinking. Several students even surprised themselves, as was the case for the student who said, "That is something I don't do, but I did!" Another student wrote, "I never really liked to read, and I got really interested in this book." Let us just clarify: Kate DiCamillo's (2001) book The Tiger Rising is an emotionally deep book that explores the complex nature of the relationship between two troubled adolescents. We mention this because the students were not reading an action-packed thriller that starts fast and would have kept them on the edge of their seats. Instead, they were kept engaged through the active processing of the deeper meanings embedded throughout this rich piece of literature, through interactive prompts that engaged higher-order thinking.

What Happens When You Ensure Higher-Order Thinking

The best thing about ensuring higher-order thinking is that students come up with things you would have never expected. As noted in the opening quote for this chapter, students will surprise you because collectively their experiences are broader than yours, and broader than any one individual student's. Higher-order thinking thrives on interaction. When students bounce ideas off each other, the exchange generates more ideas in a nonthreatening setting. Each individual student's ideas start to grow, and the effect is like placing a microphone in front of an amplifier. The thoughts go back and forth, growing in intensity. This effect was noticed by 6th grader Anna, who wrote, "By hearing others' ideas, it gave me some new ideas like, 'Wow, I didn't think of that.' And then I would add more to it." Not only will students surprise you, but they will often even end up surprising themselves. The following quote from another 6th grader, Hannah, illustrates the point:

I have noticed that I am symbolic in my art and can think deep into what I read because of this [reading] class. … Quick-Writes and Pair-Sharing helped me get deeper in the story and let me share what I have to say.

Ensuring higher-order thinking also builds academic confidence. Meghan Babcock offered this example:

Two students just came and gave me a big hug and said that they couldn't wait for the next class because [reading time] made them feel really smart. They said that they felt like they were really thinking. By saying to me that it makes them feel smart, it's because they feel that they have the opportunity to share what they know. They've come so far, because before these students were really afraid to participate.

A few TPT ideas:  

Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Shares (Lyman, 1981) are an easy Total Participation Technique that you can start implementing tomorrow. For example, 5th grade teacher Mike Pyle uses Think-Pair-Shares several times a day in his classroom. During an observed lesson, he asked students to predict what the main character would do next and be able to explain why. He allowed a good pause, even though hands were going up, and then asked students to share their response with their neighbor.

Think-Pair-Shares were used in most of the classrooms we visited. According to 6th grader Abby, they allowed her to get positive feedback from peers: "I feel very good inside because when someone else hears my thoughts and understands them, then they tell me what was good about what I said." The Think-Pair-Share is a simple but powerful tool that should be used repeatedly and consistently throughout the day.

How It Works

1. Ask students to reflect on a question or prompt. Give them a brief amount of time (perhaps 30 seconds) to formulate a response.
2. Ask students to find a partner or to turn to their assigned partner.
3. Ask them to discuss their responses.

Note: To avoid repeating directions, you can use Pair-Shares as a simple review of procedural directions you have just explained to students. A simple direction such as "Turn to your partner and explain what you have been asked to do first, second, and third" can ensure that all students understand their roles.

How to Ensure Higher-Order Thinking

As powerful a tool as the Think-Pair-Share can be, it is only as powerful as the prompt on which students are asked to reflect. Use prompts that require students to analyze the various points of view or the components that are inherent in your target standard. Ask questions that require students to explain how these components fit together or affect one another. For example, a teacher might ask, "How might the concept of an electoral college be considered undemocratic?" In responding, students must understand the intricacies of the electoral college and then contrast these with the various attributes of a democracy.

Ask students to evaluate something by defending it based on concepts learned. For example, a teacher might ask, "Up until now, multiplying numbers has always resulted in a larger number. Using words and pictures, explain why multiplying by a proper fraction will result in a smaller number." At times you may decide that after pair-sharing you would like students to join their pairs with other pairs, so that each student gets to hear and share with several peers rather than just one.

Pause to Apply

Think-Pair-Shares are arguably the easiest way to get all students discussing the content. If you're not already using them, start planning to insert them throughout your presentations. When might be a good time to try this simple but underused activity? Keep in mind that students will benefit from bulleting or quick-writing their thoughts before the Pair-Share. This simple first step enhances the discussions, because students are given enough time to process their thinking.

Quick-Draws

Quick-Draws (Himmele & Himmele, 2009) are opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of an abstract term or concept by representing it in a drawing. This TPT can be used with any age group, from young children through adults. Quick-Draws can be used in any content area, not only for concrete vocabulary concepts like renewable resource, but also for abstract concepts like sustainability. We even use Quick-Draws in our university classes to ensure that students are able to understand and deeply analyze concepts. We are always amazed at the depth and the variety of images that students create as a result of having to analyze and represent abstract theories and concepts in a drawing.

How It Works

1. Select a "big idea" or major concept within your lesson.
2. Ask students to reflect on the meaning of the concept and create a visual image that represents that concept (allow approximately three to five minutes).
3. Have students share and explain their image with a partner, in a small group, or in a Chalkboard Splash (described next).

How to Ensure Higher-Order Thinking

The thinking processes that occur when you ask students to demonstrate an abstract concept in the form of a drawing lend themselves to the analysis of the different components that make up the meaning of that concept, as well as to the synthesis of these components into a visual representation. After students create their drawings, give them an opportunity to share and explain the reasons they chose their particular visual to represent the concept.

Figure 4.3 is Bram's Quick-Draw depiction of the term vulnerability, a major theme from Meghan Babcock and Keely Potter's unit on symbolism. In Bram's analysis, he explained that "the Death Star [in Star Wars] without the armor is vulnerable. But with the armor, it is not vulnerable." According to 6th grader Hannah, "What helped me out the most was the drawing and writing time [Quick-Draws with accompanying analyses] because it really made me think about the situation."

Figure 4.3. Bram's Quick-Draw of Vulnerability

Pause to Apply

If you're thinking that the Quick-Draw would not fit practically within the standards that you are teaching, stop to reflect on the specific topics you will be teaching this week. What big ideas and concepts do you hope students will walk away with? Then think about how you would draw these. We think that most teachers would be surprised with how practical this activity is, even with concepts that don't seem to be easily captured in a drawing. Within the next week, when might you insert a Quick-Draw? Is there a concept or idea that you'll be presenting where it would be helpful for students to pause and synthesize their deeper understandings in the form of a visual representation?

Quick-Draw Gallery Walk

A Quick-Draw Gallery Walk allows for students to share their Quick-Draws and to look for themes and similarities. It requires that students will have first completed Quick-Draws, and it requires that they be displayed around the room.

How It Works

1. Ask students to label their Quick-Draws with a brief explanation as to how it represents the content that was learned.
2. Place cut strips of tape so that they are dangling from a table or have several tape dispensers available so that students can grab a piece of tape to hang their Quick-Draws at eye level around the room.
3. Ask students to grab their notebooks, walk around the room (give them all the same direction, clockwise or counterclockwise), and take notes on the content-related themes that they find in the imagery students have created.

How to Ensure Higher-Order Thinking

Ask students to find two or three new themes that they hadn't thought of prior to viewing their peers' Quick-Draws. Once they've captured a few themes, in pairs or small groups, ask them to create a sentence that encapsulates the imagery in their peers' pictures and the content that it was meant to represent.

Pause to Apply

Once you've tried the Quick-Draw, you may find yourself wishing that there were a way for all students to quickly see and analyze each other's imagery. We encourage you to have several tape dispensers ready so that students can quickly share their images. Have them label the images to make the meanings clear. This activity came as a result of successful shared experiences that we added to our own practice. We encourage you to try it. As noted earlier, you may be surprised at how well Quick-Draws apply to abstract concepts in any content area.