Danielle Samperi's List: Teaching Ideas and Strategies

• 2006

  • It seems to me, from articles that I have read recently, that these ideas have been circulating within educational domains for a number of years. And yet, not a lot seems to have changed. Are there larger forces at work here, keeping our teaching and learning practices static rather dynamic?
• This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about  education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some  fraction of our children get "left behind" but also whether an entire generation  of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't  think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good  information from bad or speak a language other than English.
• we need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century.
• Knowing more about the world
• Thinking outside the box
• Becoming smarter about new sources of information
• Developing good people skills
• Global Student
• All students take some classes in either Japanese or Spanish. Other subjects are  taught in English, but the content has an international flavor
• Exposure to world cultures
• which skills and disciplines. "No. 1 was technology,"
• video-conferencing with sister schools in Japan, Africa and Mexico
• international mindedness
• Real Knowledge in the Google Era
• Any number of old-school  assignments--memorizing the battles of the Civil War or   the periodic table of the elements--now seem  faintly absurd. That kind of   information, which is poorly retained unless  you routinely use it, is available   at a  keystroke .

  • Needed: real, deep knowledge that is able to question and challenge; critical thinking and the ability to make "connections between ideas" (Wallis 2006).
• Any number of old-school assignments--memorizing the battles of the Civil War or  the periodic table of the elements--now seem faintly absurd. That kind of  information, which is poorly retained unless you routinely use it, is available  at a keystroke
• "portable skills"--critical thinking, making connections between ideas and  knowing how to keep on learning
• key concepts that are taught in depth and in  careful sequence, as opposed to a   succession of forgettable details

  • Involves careful planning, but definitely worth it.
• key concepts that are taught in depth and in careful sequence, as opposed to a  succession of forgettable details
• Depth over breadth and the ability to leap across disciplines

• A New Kind of Literacy

  • Consider multi-literacies.
• documentary
• the elusive nature of truth
• what we know and how we know it
• "If truth is difficult to prove in history, does it follow that all versions are  equally acceptable?"
• information literacy

  • Consider multi-literacies.
• research and deeper thinking

  • We must explicitly teach these skills.
• assessments that are livelier and more current and multimedia-based than printed  textbooks
• gap between how kids learn at school and how they do everything else

  • See Prensky (2005) article.
• bring their methods--along with the curriculum--into line with the way the  modern world works
• . That means putting a greater emphasis on teaching kids to collaborate and  solve problems in small groups and apply what they've learned in the real world.
• That means putting a greater emphasis on  teaching kids to collaborate and   solve  problems in small groups and apply what they've learned in the real  world.

  • Key point. How? Makes me think of 'SMS poems' idea...
• At suburban Farmington High in Michigan, the  engineering-technology department   functions like an engineering firm, with  teachers as project managers, a Ford   Motor  Co. engineer as a consultant and students working in teams.

  • Interesting! Could this work for a high school English department?
• At suburban Farmington High in Michigan, the engineering-technology department  functions like an engineering firm, with teachers as project managers, a Ford  Motor Co. engineer as a consultant and students working in teams.
• the kids learn to apply academic principles to the real world, think  strategically and solve problems.

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• from a cut-and-paste culture bred by the ease  with which any of us can locate   and save  information. Sadly, Google and its relatives give us all a false sense    of
• from a   cut-and-paste culture bred by the  ease     with   which  any of us can locate       and  save     information. Sadly, Google and its  relatives   give us  all a false sense       of
• from a  cut-and-paste culture bred by the ease   with  which any of us can locate     and save   information. Sadly, Google and its relatives  give us all a false sense     of
• eliminating those classroom practices that encourage and promote such lazy  thinking and research, replacing them with activities that are more challenging  and more worthwhile.
• We will no longer assign topical research or accept papers that are little more  than a rehash of other people's ideas and thinking

  • Goal: critical thinking so that students can formulate and communicate their OWN ideas.
• defining and challenging questions to shape  the research
• The lack of defining and challenging questions to shape the research permits a  HUGE range of activities.
• defining and challenging questions to shape the research

• Questions of import usually require that students  wrestle with difficult challenges and build their own answers rather than  relying upon the thinking of others.

•  Questions of import usually require that  students   wrestle  with difficult challenges and build their own answers rather than   relying upon the thinking of  others. 

  • Questions that require research AND critical thinking about the information that is found (i.e. evaluation of the information to develop own ideas).

• This type of research is much more demanding than  copy-and-paste research, but ultimately more rewarding and more empowering  because it equips students to wrestle with the real issues of their own  lives.
• Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge.  

  2. Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply  knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge.

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• For both the students with learning disabilities and  remedial students, treatment with the computer program produced significantly  higher scores than treatment with the atlas.
• There are two primary reasons for  adapting textbooks  for pupils with learning disabilities and other  low-achieving students. The first, and perhaps the most important, is that the  majority of those students are unable to read assigned  textbooks with the proficiency required to gain  information from them and to assimilate that information with previously learned  material.
• a significant correlation between the rate at which students read  textbooks orally and scores on written tests based on  textbook information.
• A second and related reason for  adapting textbooks  for adolescents with mild disabilities is that many of  those books are poorly organized.
• Kantor et al. estimated that textbooks were  appropriate for only the top 50% of the students.
• Study guides are questions or statements that appear on worksheets to help  students learn content information during or after they have read a passage
• They are abstracts of important pieces of information from larger contexts.
• When presented in that manner, study guide materials resemble adjunct questions  that appear in text immediately following a passage. A written response to such  questions in text has been shown to improve significantly the reading  comprehension of general education students, particularly when questions relate  directly to criterion test items
• Study guides were significantly more effective than self-study  for secondary students of three types; study guides  were superior to self-study in middle school and high school and in  science and social studies; and study guide material  resulted in consistent effects for heterogeneous  groups of students, whether they were primarily teacher directed or student  directed.
• A more refined technique is to match pupils to differential levels of  textbook instruction so that each learner interacts  with subject matter at his or her highest level of ability.
• The term graphic organizer (GO) refers to both verbal and visual representation  of key vocabulary or content information.
• Students' average correct scores on tests across the three experiments were  significantly higher when GO treatments were in effect than in Self-study  conditions.
• Furthermore, the performances were comparable within each student classification  whether GOs were completed through teacher-or student-directed procedures.
• Our rationale for supporting the use of this method to  adapt textbook information is based on the fact that  key vocabulary serves as a foundation on which facts, concepts, and  relationships are built.
• Students who have command of a subject's vocabulary will undoubtedly stand a  greater chance of mastering that subject than will pupils who lack familiarity  with the key terms.

  • Important!
• Recent research has investigated the effectiveness of computerized study guides  developed in a hypertext format, a generic term for  high-level software that allows users to explore information in a nonlinear and  interactive fashion (Megarry, 1988). In a hypertext format, a study guide page  might be envisioned as several sheets of transparency film overlying each other.  The surface layer provides the primary text to be read by the students, and also  serves as a menu for accessing additional information.  This layering of text and graphics allows students to access a variety of  instructional concepts.

• When the cursor is positioned on selected areas of the  top layer, related layers beneath become accessible.  For example, when a word is selected with the cursor,  the word's definition could be provided, or its pronunciation (either  phonetically or through voice simulation), or a graphic related to the word  could be furnished.
• The students were randomly assigned to one of three instructional groups:  lecture only (LO), lecture plus hypertext (LH), and hypertext only (HO).
• Results indicated that the HO treatment produced the highest average correct  scores on the daily quizzes for all types of students.  The superior average performance of the HO group was also evidenced on both the  posttest and the retention test.
• In one intervention, students were presented the locations of 14 Asian cities by  completing a computerized map tutorial. In the other condition, the same  students were asked to learn the locations of 14 different Asian cities by  referencing an atlas and transcribing that information to a workmap.
• A common problem today is how to help students with learning disabilities and  other low-achieving students comprehend material from their  textbooks. To the extent that educators can achieve  such a task, there is a greater likelihood that those youth will stay in school  and feel reasonably good about it.
• That rationale is that if textbooks and other means of  presenting materials are modified and made more accommodating to youth, the  chances of their participating in classes and enjoying the instructional  sessions are improved. And, their attendance may improve, as might their grades,  thus encouraging them to stay in school longer and increasing chances of their  graduating.
• • Use curriculum-based assessments prior to  instruction to determine which students can interact with the text at an  independent level and which students will need materials modifications.  
• Perhaps the line of least resistance for improving the  performance of students with mild academic disabilities in general education  classrooms is to use modification techniques that are suitable and powerful  enough to help all students.

  • ALL students.
• Beyond that, we suggest that students receive instruction on a few select  methods of comprehending expository materials that have recently been  substantiated by research: summarizing, locating main ideas, and constructing  questions.
• If we could make only one recommendation concerning the several techniques we  have discussed, we would suggest using study guides because of their versatility  and ease of construction.

  • Recommendation.
• The key to using study guides effectively is for  teachers to construct test items that relate directly to the guide material.

• Underlying the various methods  for modifying textbooks that  we have discussed, and the arguments we have made for  the necessity of such material adjustments for  low-achieving students, is the reality that rarely can all of the pertinent  information in textbooks be successfully taught to  heterogeneous groups in an unmodified state. To accept this premise is to  elevate the organization of information to an equal status with its content and  to increase the probability that more individuals with disabilities will gain  more from their instruction.

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• I think the experience of change is at the heart of literary education.
• The highest objective for someone trying to provide a literary education to  students is to make moments of transformation possible.
• But a prerequisite for sharing literary art with young people should be the  belief that, over all, its influence can be salutary; it can aid in growth.
• I said that transformation was the highest goal of literary education
• But the proper business of teaching is change for teachers (who are themselves a  work in progress) and (pre-eminently) for students.

  • pre-eminently = above all
• There's no chance for the instant that Emerson and Longinus evoke, when one  feels that he's written what he's only read, uttered what he's only heard.
• When a teacher admires an author enough to teach his work, it stands to reason  the teacher's initial objective ought to be framing a reading the author would  approve. The teacher, to begin with, represents the author; he analyses the text  sympathetically, he treats the words with care, caution and due respect.
• He works hard with the students to develop a vision of what the world is and how  to live that rises from the author's work

  • Important point!
• and that, ultimately, the author, were they present in the room, would endorse.
• the critic's objective is to read the author with humane sensitivity, then  synthesise a view of life based on that reading.

  • Important!
• Arthur Schopenhauer tells us all important artists ask, and in their fashion  answer, a single commanding question: "What is life?"

  • Important!!
• The critic works to show how the author frames that query and how he answers it.

  • Important!
• We need to befriend the texts we choose to teach. They, too, are the testaments  of human beings who have lived and suffered in the world. They, too, deserve  honour and respect.
• If interpretation means the work, often difficult, often pleasurable, of parsing  the complexities of meaning a given text offers, then interpretation is  necessary before we decide what vision of the world the text endorses.
• Once the author's vision of what Wallace Stevens calls "How to Live. What to Do"  is made manifest, it's necessary to question it.

  • Interesting. Do all author's include a vision of "How to Live. What to Do"?
• Criticism is getting into sceptical dialogue with the text

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