I spend a lot of time browsing the blogosphere for things that interest me. Here’s some of what stood out in the past few days…
- NCLB: Act II – Expect New Rules for Title I on Tuesday – David J. Hoff at Education Week points out that Anre Duncan’s Department of Education will release new Title I regs this week. “Graduation rates” will likely be redefined. The changes may impact minimum cell size for the number of students in a subgroup needed for that group to be include under NCLB’s accountability rules.
- Ga. Senate OKs Extra Pay for Math, Science Teachers – EdWeek carried an Associated Press story a few days ago on Georgia’s plan to up the pay of math and science teachers. It will be interesting to see if the move carries over to other states and to other shortage areas (like special education). Georgia math & science teachers would get the extra pay for five years and then they’d have that bonus tied to student performance. That smells like merit pay to me…
- YouTube Edu Launches – Cool Cat teacher Vicki Davis commented a few days ago on the launch of YouTube’s K-12 channel. Still some bugs to work out.
- Open Education had a piece this week that reviewed some useful sites for teachers.
- Teacher Magazine ran a short piece on the annual “Technology Counts” report that Education Week just finished. Who’s Number One? West Virginia (although it shares the spot light in a tie with Georgia).
I Just got back from the Evaluation Leadership Institute. The West Virginia Center for Professional Development runs the ELI. My class was in Charleston. So I got up Friday morning at 4:30 and drive the three hours up there, then spent the night at a hotel for today’s session.
The ELI had 30+ students this time. I was surprised by the number of out-of-state people who attended the workshop. Principals and prospective principals from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland came to the two sessions. The workshop reviewed West Virginia Policy 5310 on personnel evaluation. But it also provide those of us who were there with a good chance to spend time with other prospective administrators. A handful of the participants were recently anointed administrators serving out their first few months on the job.
It was a useful workshop and presenters Phil Brown and Joe Oliverio provided a lot of practical tools and veteran insight.
I went to my county’s orientation for the newbies who are going to the 2009 21st Century Special Education Teacher Leadership Academy. Another teacher and I will be going for the first time. The Academy is in late July in Charleston, WV for about a week. Participates get a laptop out of it (or some other tech tool if they’ve been to the Academy before) and some significant professional development.
There’s also a page at Ning where participants in the Academy have a growing social network.
Author Ted McCain is this year’s keynote speaker.
Well, despite my best intentions I simply haven’t gotten around to finishing my Reading Research Symposium (RSS) blog posts.Tomorrow I have a meeting after school, and then an LSIC meeting after the first meeting. I expect to be at school until almost 7pm. I also have three IEP meetings and some notes to work on in preparation for a upcoming visit from OEPA.
So evetually I’ll look through my notes on the RSS and say more…
Looking at what I have on my plate at the moment, it will probably be the weekend before I get around to blogging the rest of the Symposium. There were some things said there that I definitely want to repeat.
I will take a moment and talk about this idea, though. I told my boss at lunch on the first day that we needed a Vocabulary Czar – someone to coordinate the promotion of increased vocabulary. She laughed and probably still thinks I was joking. But every elementary school probably needs a Vocabulary Czar.
The simple truth is that we explicitly teach a few hundred vocabulary words a year across core subjects. And yet the kids need to learn a few thousand new words each year. Most vocabulary is learned without explicit vocabulary instruction.
I read a big book today with second graders. We have a strong program to promote the vocabulary we focus on. But the book contained the words fragile and hollow, and most of the students couldn’t explain what those words meant. They aren’t “vocabulary words” this week. But they are new vocabulary.
Someone in a school needs to take responsibility for providing tools that can be used to monitor and promote vocabulary growth, and encourage vocabulary development as part of school culture (not just curriculum).
When I grow up I want to be a Vocabulary Czar…
The Symposium this year is a little different than the one last year. Instead of more presenters in the afternoon, this year the Symposium is using application sessions to discuss how to use workshop material in the classroom.
My application session was facilitated by an instructional coach from Raleigh County, Cheryl Osborne.
(You can find some notes for the session here.)
Ms. Osborne showed us a number of useful tools. One was Wordle – a way of turning text into art. We also looked at iQuiz Maker for iPod.
The most useful aspect of the afternoon session was probably the number of hands-on games and applications aimed at developing vocabulary. I expect to take several of those ideas back to my classrooms…
My first session this morning was with Dr. Jerry Johns (North Illinois University, former president of the International Reading Association). Dr. Johns looked at vocabulary in the context of West Virginia’s new content standards.
The single item that impacted me most was a slide on vocabulary deficits in children from welfare families. A 1995 study by Hart and Risley showed that the cumulative vocabulary of three year olds from welfare families (about 500 words) was less than half that of three year olds from families where the parent have professional jobs (about 1100 words). That points to the extent to which teachers need to play catch up with kids in poverty settings.
The second session this morning was Dr. Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert. She talked about strategic vocabulary selection – how to pick vocabulary words out of narrative and informational texts to serve as vocabulary words. Dr. Hiebert talked about the historic structure of English vocabulary – the Germanic words, the Romance words that entered the language with the Norman invasion, and the multitude of Greek words that have been brought into the language. The main instructional strategy that Dr. Hiebert advocated was teaching clouds of related words so that students build vocabulary around concepts instead of in isolation. It was a good session.
(You can find a few personal details about my day here.)
I left my hotel room about 5pm and went over to register for the WV Reading Research Symposium (RRS) at the Charleston Civic Center.
The WV Department of Education served dinner to a thousand or so people. A nice salad of mostly baby romaine, chicken parmesean, streamed veggies, penne pasta, crusty bread, butter (shaped into little flowers), coffee, tea, and a choice of either chocolate cake or strawberry short cake.
State Superintendent Dr. Steven L. Paine had planned to greet us over Skype. Dr. Paine is in DC at the moment. Unfortunately, he could not get out of a meeting there and a recorded message from the state superintendent had to do.
Our keynote speaker was Dr. Elfrieda “Freddy” Paine from UC Berkeley. She spoke about vocabulary development. But her message seemed mostly designed to inspire, not instruct. She was enjoyable. I look forward to her session tomorrow.
Well, gotta iron tomorrow’s short…
Well, I’m pretty much packed. Ate breakfast with my wife. Played with the dog a little. Went out to see if my crocuses are up (not). I have about an hour to get dressed and hit the road. The trip to Charleston from Tazewell, VA takes me about three hours.
I’m staying at the Holiday Inn Express, right across from the Civic Center. Here’s an agenda. More later…
