Powerful Learning strategies focuses on three drivers: Strategic Instruction, Authentic Engagement, and Connecting and Contributing.
Introduction Have you ever faced this struggle: should I focus on academic content or boost social emotional character development? I am sure educators have encountered this dilemma many times, including myself. With no guidance on the topic, it is hard to know how to teach it to students. I have been thinking about social emotional learning for some time. I came across an article “Making...
Voice and Choice Voice and Choice are the two core tenets of Student-Center-Learning, according to Christa Green and Christopher Harrington, authors of the “How Implementing Voice and Choice Can Improve Student Engagement” article. Green and Harrington explore voice and choice in depth “to understand why implementing Student-Centered principles into the learning environment can...
The Building Blocks of Project-Based Learning Lesson Plan Check List for PBL Jennifer Pieratt, author of Project-Based Learning: Assessment and Other Dirty Words, provided some tips to help you integrate assessment best practices into your projects, while also helping you uphold rigor and student engagement: Start With The End In Mind Build Your Rubric Rows Benchmark Deliverables Calendar It Out...
Introduction True student ownership begins when the teacher looks at assessment from the point of view of the student. That is assessment for learning. Robert Crowe and Jane Kenney define the student’s ability to understand when they are learning and struggling, as assessment. It directly relates to the learning as determined in the curriculum, and to the strategies as determined in...
Develop How They Are Learning Introduction Instruction Develop students to own how they are learning requires teachers to look at instruction from the students’ point of view. This is important to remember as you plan your unit of instructions. What students need to do to learn the skills. True student ownership begins when the teacher looks at instruction from the students’ point of...
The Elements of Effective Instruction According to the article “The Elements of Effective Instruction” by Great Schools Partnership, these 5 elements of instructional practice are intertwined to foster student engagement with the ultimate goal of improving student outcomes and achievements, and it is a necessary foundation for fostering student ownership of learning. So, what happens...
What Students Know and Do Introduction To ensure students demonstrate an increase in ownership of learning, authors Crowe and Kennedy focus on practices in curriculum by using Strategic Learning Practices, which research shows increase the opportunities for learning – by increasing the opportunities for student ownership. Review In my previous Blog Post, What is the Look and Sound of...
Student Ownership Student ownership is defined as a mindset, according to Robert Crowe and Jane Kennedy, authors of Developing Student Ownership Supporting Students to Own Their Learning through the use of Strategic Learning Practices. Authors describe students with an ownership mindset who know they have the authority, capacity, and responsibility to own their learning. The Look and Sound of...
Two Key Components Rigor Two Components in Path to Rigor The Path to Rigor has two components-complexity and autonomy. This is according to authors Carla Moore, Michael D Toth, and Robert J Marzano, The Essentials for Standards-Driven Classrooms. Complexity, authors define, is the cognitive load required by the standard. There are four levels in Marzano’s taxonomy: Retrieval, comprehension...
Standards Based Planning Introduction Standards Based Planning Process includes planning lessons and units built on standards, and creating assessments that measure student progress toward standards. From ASCD article on Developing Well Designed Standards Based Units The Process of Standards-Based Planning Identify Essential Standards In their book, The Essentials for Standards-Driven Classrooms...
Thinking Tool Kit Thinking Tools Promote Higher Literacy Thinking tools are cognitive strategies, including planning and goal-setting, tapping prior knowledge, making connections, forming interpretations, reflecting, and evaluating that experienced readers and writers used to construct meaning from and with texts according to Carol Booth Olson, author of Thinking Tools for Young Readers and...
Achieve Success Criteria Introduction Moss and Brookhart, authors of Learning Target, give 2 classroom scenarios on sharing learning target: Mrs. Thompson: Today we will continue reading Julius Caesar, pages 462 to 472. Answer the questions in the study guide as you read. The first 30 questions focus on facts about Shakespeare’s prior life, and the next 30 outline facts about Julius Caesar. To...
Where am I going? What is Learning Target? Most teachers remember being required to write lesson objectives on the board for students to view. This enables them to be evaluated and gives students an understanding of the purpose of the lesson. However, it is unlikely that most students fully comprehend the intention or outcome. Therefore, I am proposing strategies to increase student learning...