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….

Solve For X is a series of TED-like talks that appear to be sponsored by Google.

It’s described as “A forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork.”

Here’s a sample. It’s a talk by Nicholas Negroponte on students learning by themselves:

I’m adding this info to The Best Teacher Resources For “TED Talks” (& Similar Presentations).

Thanks to Open Culture for the tip.

I’ve just published the first post in a four-part series on “Ways To Help Our Students Become Better Readers” over at Education Week Teacher.

This column includes contributions from Stephen Krashen and Richard Allington.

It should be an excellent series. And I hope you’ll contribute your own advice, too!

“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….

The happy secret to better work is a short TED video that has a lot relevance to the classroom.

I’m adding this post to My Best Posts On Why It’s Important To Be Positive In Class.

Being Ranked Can Reduce IQ is the headline of an article in The Wall Street Journal about a study that’s been receiving a fair amount of media attention this week. The Journal article is the best one — by far — that I’ve seen on it.

Basically, if people know they are being “ranked,” and are rated low, their IQ gets worse. This is not a surprise to many of us who teach and who resist “tracking” students.

The researchers apply these findings to other areas, including in the workplace.

Is it a stretch to wonder if labeling schools as failing can have a similar effect? How about teachers who were publicly ranked as bad by the Los Angeles Times using faulty statistics? Do you think those public humiliations generally result in positive change?

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.