I’ll be a guest on next Wednesdays #PTchat on Twitter to discuss:

strategies schools can employ to partner with ESL/ELL families

It will be on on Wednesday, February 17th at 9PM EST.

You can learn more about it at Joe Mazza’s blog.

The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons is a must-read post by Ronnie Burt over at The Edublogger.

I’m adding it to The Best Resources To Learn About Copyright Issues.

Yesterday, I posted NPR’s Robert Krulwich Provides Another Excellent Idea For A History Lesson. I didn’t try that idea out today, but tried another one that I had previously posted (“Let’s Play ‘History As A List’” Is A Fascinating Idea).

And, actually, I didn’t try it out precisely as I had described, either. Nevertheless, it went well, and here’s what I did.

We’re just finishing a unit on Reconstruction in my U.S. History class for Intermediate and Beginning English Language Learners. I had seven minutes left in class, and I asked students to simply list three words that represent Reconstruction, and then follow it with three sentences describing why they picked each word.

I did a quick model by doing one describing me — handsome, smart, strong (all to great hilarity).

Students grasped it quickly. Here’s a typical example of what they wrote:

Money

Change

Discrimination

I picked money because Congress used it to build schools.

I picked change because things were different after the Civil War.

I picked discrimination because the southern government made unfair laws for the blacks.

It worked as an easy formative assessment.

It wasn’t the “higher-order thinking” version that I discussed in my original post, but using it like this provides a good starting point.

For all I know, teachers may have been using this kind of exercise for years.  But it was new to me and, perhaps, new to some of this blog’s readers….

“The Onion,” the satirical news site, can often times be mean-spirited and in bad taste. But sometimes it can sure be funny, too!

Here are my picks for The Best Education Articles From “The Onion.” Please let me know which ones I’ve missed:

Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From Language Programs

Budget Mix-Up Provides Nation’s Schools With Enough Money To Properly Educate Students

Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington

School ‘Fine,’ U.S. Teens Report

New Study: Books Don’t Take You Anywhere

Arizona High Schools To Now Teach Spanish Entirely In English

Bilingual Education Under Fire

These next three aren’t school related, but they’re still among my favorites:

‘How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?’ 30 Million People Wonder

President Obama’s personal flowchart deconstructing the ethics of pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey

Gap Between Rich And Poor Named 8th Wonder Of The World

If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

You might also want to explore the over 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

As regular readers know, each semester I have students in my classes use anonymous evaluation forms to rate the class and my teaching. You can see previous reports at My Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers), where I also explain the process I use and have evaluation forms that can be downloaded.

In addition to teaching English and U.S. History to English Language Learners, I also teach an IB Theory of Knowledge class. It’s always a fun course to teach, and, generally, students enjoy it as much as I do. Here the questions with representative sample responses. My reflections follow:

1) What are the two or three most important things you have learned in this class so far?

I’ve learned that I have to see things in different perspectives because you’d be open to a whole new world if you were just a little more open-minded.

You really need to look at things from different perspectives. There often is not only one correct answer.

Many students wrote that the concept of confirmation bias (the tendency to just see evidence that agrees with your viewpoint) was the most important thing they learned.

I wonder what opponents of IB think when they see these kinds of responses (many believe that we’re pushing a “United Nations agenda” on students).

2. What have you liked about this class or how it was taught?

We have fun. We actually do! (“fun” was mentioned a lot)

I liked how we did many different activities and it wasn’t all the same all the time.

It’s “hands-on” mentally — it makes you think a lot.

“Working in groups” was also on many sheets.

3. How do you think this class could be improved?

Be more precise with directions.

More class discussions.

Don’t kill as many trees with all the copies you make. (this comment was made several times)

I need to think about the comments about directions — that could be a very good point.  I’ve reduced the number of copies I usually make, but perhaps I can reduce it even more.

4. What grade would you give Mr. Ferlazzo as a teacher?  What do you think he does well?  What do you think he could improve?

All students, except for one, gave me an A or an A+ (one student gave me a B). Several students said I make the lessons fun and engaging.  Several said, again, that I could improve on giving better directions and making fewer copies.

5. Are there ways you think what you learned in this class will help you in the future?  If so, what are they?

I was more than a little disappointed in the responses to this question.  In fact, almost half of the class left it blank.  The most common comments that students made were feeling that they would feel more comfortable making presentations and be able to “argue better.”

Helping students in all my classes see how they can apply what they learn in their lives has been a priority of mine this semester.  Obviously, it’s one area where  have to do a better job.

6. What are your concerns — if any — about the upcoming semester?  What you think Mr. Ferlazzo and you can do to respond to them?

Most wrote that they were concerned about doing the TOK oral presentation and essay that are the major requirements in the second semester and which can be evaluated by IB reviewers.  Those are understandable concerns.

7. What grade would you give for the effort you have put into this class so far this year?  Is there anything you want to do differently next semester?

Most students, justifiably, feel they deserve an A so far.

8. Is there anything else you would like to say about this class that you haven’t already said in your previous answers?

This class is a great way to end the day!

I wish there was another TOK class in my senior year!

I’m generally pleased with the results of the evaluation.  However, my biggest concern is that many students could not, or would not, identify how they could apply what they are learning in the future.  That’s a disappointment, and I need to spend a fair amount of time reflecting on what I can do differently.

Any other feedback is appreciated….

As you may, or may not, have known, the Contact Form on this blog hasn’t been working very well since I got a new theme.

However, Ronnie Burt from Edublogs has it all fixed up now, so feel free to Contact Me.

Slideshare has just released this slideshow looking at 2011 through the lens of presentations. It’s fairly interesting:

“You see schools where the ‘good’ kids are compliant, the ‘bad’ kids  are defiant, and nobody is engaged.”

That’s a quote from the Daniel Pink video I posted about earlier today. He gives a nice review (from the 79 minute mark to the 81st minute) about the difference between learning and performance goals, which I’ve previously posted about and used in lesson plan you can find in my book.

At the 86th minute, he also makes a nice comment about the fact that schools and other institutions have a “poverty of metrics” in relation to standardized tests.

The Superintendent of Montgomery County Schools in Maryland had a book discussion group with Daniel Pink last night, and posted a video of it earlier today.

It’s ninety-minutes long, and I’ve only had a chance to watch/listen to the first thirty minutes. So far, I would especially recommend the section from about the ten minute mark to the 25 minute mark. I’ll be listening to the rest of it later tonight.

I’m adding this post to My Best Posts On “Motivating” Students.

Remember the climactic scene in the movie “Spartacus” where all the captured slaves say, “I am Spartacus” to avoid having the Romans find the real one?

Well, I had a Spartacus deja vu moment in class today.

A student named “John” has been out with a medical issue for a couple of months, so I let him take a U.S. History test with an open book.  Other students jokingly said they wanted to use their book, too.

My response: “Only students named ‘John’ get to use a book today.”

Then, one student said, “My name is John,” immediately followed by another student saying the same thing and so on.  It was hilarious, and I’m sure none of them had seen Spartacus….

I love teaching…..

This is the second in a series of recapping student evaluations of my classes this past semester. You can find all these reviews and more at My Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers).

This post covers my double-period English class of Intermediate and Beginner ELL’s. Here’s a copy of the anonymous evaluation form I used.

Most of the activities we did, and my own qualities as a teacher, received high marks — most, though not all. This is just going to be a short post, and I’m going to highlight some items that stood out:

* Though “writing essays” was rated as one of the activities Intermediate students liked the least, they — impressively, I think — ranked it very high as one of the activities they learned the most from doing.

* Beginner students ranked our use of the Picture Word Inductive Model as both one of the activities they liked the most and one from which they learned the most. I was glad to see that…

* All student ranked using computers high in both categories.

* Students ranked me high in most teaching qualities. However, I was surprised to see that the qualities where I received the lowest (though still relatively high) marks were in “patience” and “is organized and prepared.” Since I think those are two of my strongest areas, I’m not sure what to make of it. There is such a wide range of English proficiency in the class, and this is the first year we’ve tried to do a combined Intermediate/Beginner class, things can be a little hectic trying to balance it all. I wonder if that contributes to my appearing to have less patience and being less prepared? Or, on the other hand, maybe I am just less patient and less prepared than I think I am? I’ve got to think about this a little more.

* Though four-fifths of the class ranked me at the top of the scale as a teacher they would like to have again, one-fifth gave a middle or low-ranking response to that question. Though that’s a low percentage, it’s still the biggest non-positive response I’ve every gotten for the question from a class. It would certainly be helpful to know if there is a pattern to those responders — if they are in the Intermediates or Beginners, or if it crosses both but, of course, that’s not possible to know in an anonymous survey. Everyone said that the pace of the class is “just right,” as opposed to being too slow or too fast, so I tend not to think that a lack of differentiation is the problem.

I’d love to hear other people’s analyses of these responses. At this point, my primary take-away is that I should continue to do what I’m doing, and be a little more conscious of patience and preparation.

My wife and I are headed to Denver later this week where I’ll be leading a couple of workshops at the Colorado Council International Reading Association Conference.

I’ve set up a simple wiki with resources for the workshops.

According to The Weather Channel, my worst fears about Denver in February don’t appear ready to materialize — Hooray!

I hope to meet readers, and non-readers, of my blog there!