Last Thursday, during our afternoon in-service about Units of Instruction, Chris talked to us about the Rigor/Relevance Framework when he was introducing the UoI. When we hear that phrase Rigor/Relevance many of us have uneasy thoughts about having to change everything that is completed in our classes or that our students cannot handle difficult tasks. A positive of increasing the rigor or relevance of an activity is that it can be completed by simply changing the verb. For example, on one of the topic tests I gave my students last year, I had them SELECT the factors of 15 from a list of numbers. The verb SELECT is located in quadrant A. I could simply change the task to GENERATE a list of factors for the number 15 and this problem becomes a quadrant C problem. On a different assessment, I asked the students to FIND the unit rate of two runners in a race. Another quadrant A problem. If I would have changed the task to PREDICT which of the following runners would finish a race of 6 miles faster, this problem is now a quadrant D task. As you continue planning for upcoming lessons and activities for your classroom or your Unit of Instruction, keep in mind which quadrant the activities or tasks you are having your students complete fall under. Simply changing a verb can increase the rigor/relevance of your lesson or assignment. TURN UP THE HEAT!!!!!
A characteristic of an effective educator is someone that is a life-long learner. Being a life-long learner is something that we say we are or would like to be, but not everyone truly is. One of the benefits of the recent boom in social media and the expansion of the internet is that there are countless avenues for an educator to grow professionally and to improve their instruction. One does not need to wait for a publication or a conference to improve or enhance their abilities in the classroom. However, all of the information that is available can be overwhelming and difficult to locate something that you need individually. With that in mind, the Excelsior Springs School District has rolled out a new blog to help combat the concerns listed above. Beginning Thursday, educators are now able to visit the Excelsior Springs School District Professional Development Blog at http://essd40pd.weebly.com/.
This blog is a site that will provide educators with resources for their PDPs and UoIs as well as a place to discover potential learning opportunities and share learning experiences. This site will be a district resource that will work in collaboration with our Middle School site http://tigerpd.blogspot.com/. This summer at a conference with Alan November, he told the audience that the reason why students use social media so much is that they like to know what other students are doing and want other students to know what they are doing. These two blogs are excellent examples and opportunities to learn what other educators are doing and learning as well as a place for you to share what you are doing and learning. Thanks for everyone’s hard work this past day and half. Have a great weekend and TURN UP THE HEAT!!!!! Mid-Term grade checks can be a time when a great deal of stress and pressure can be felt not only by teachers, but the students as well. Many of us have been in rush trying to get assignments and assessments graded and put in the grade book as the deadline approaches. Sometimes we are even a little late. What I would like everyone to remember though is that this time is an excellent opportunity to evaluate instruction and student comprehension. As the year progresses and you begin to collect various forms of student data, take the time to analyze what has been collected and how you are going to use this information to improve your instruction. This is also an excellent time to meet individually with students to go over how they are progressing and what they need to do to improve. Thanks for everyone’s hard work getting grades entered and TURN UP THE HEAT!!!!!!
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AuthorI'm Ben Rubey, Instructional Coach at Excelsior Springs Middle School. Archives
April 2015
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