Keynote Presentation

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• Keynote Presentation
• Faye Brownlie
• March 3, 2008

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My Premise

• Teachers are doing the best they can with what
  they know.
• Personal Experience
• School Norms
• Second Hand Experience
• Research
• Mandated Curriculum and Assessment

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My Questions

• Is this what we want?
• Is what we are doing the best of what we know?

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Scenarios

• Of what we have been/are doing
• Through the eyes of a teacher - the past 28
  years

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Your Questions

• Does this reflect your practice?
• What does this practice show you believe about
  learning and learners?
• Is this the practice that you want?

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• Late 70s and 1980s

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Reading Programs

• Ginn 360 or Language Patterns

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Young Writers The Writing Process

• A provincial initiative
• Pre-writing, drafting, editing, proof-reading,
  publishing and presenting
• Daily writing for an audience and with a purpose

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Secondary English

• One class novel
• Comprehension questions
• Grammar worksheets
• Main idea booklets

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• Late 80s and 1990s

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Thinking in the Classroom

• Four areas of thoughtful learning
• Questioning
• Making connections
• Representing
• Reflecting
• Based on integrated learning, teaching and
  assessment
• 1991

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• Primary Program, 1990, 2000
• Intermediate Program, 1990 (draft)
• Year 2000 - A Framework for Learning, 1990

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Principles of Learning

• Learning is an active process.
• Learning is an individual and social process.
• Children learn in different ways and at different
  rates.

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Research - Pearson Fielding, 1994

1. Large amounts of time for actual text reading
2. Teacher-directed instruction in comprehension
   strategies
3. Opportunities for peer and collaborative learning
4. Occasions for students to talk to a teacher and
   one another about their responses to reading

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• Inclusion - differentiation
• ESL

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• Enhancing and Evaluating Oral Communication in
  the Primary, Intermediate and Secondary Grades,
  1988

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The Classroom Context Study, 1993

• Grades 3,7,10, 3 months, 2000 kids
• Purpose
• Assess communication skills within the regular
  context of classroom learning
• Develop an understanding of Ss experiences and
  Ts practices

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• Findings
• Classroom activities were focused around
  independent, self-contained reading and writing
  activities
• Teachers more confident about teaching writing
  than reading
• Little instruction in oral language

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• Are you a whole language teacher?

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• Are we still allowed to do this?

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• Do you believe in spelling?

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Other derailers

• polar opposites
• mandates
• politics
• jargon

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• Late 90s and into the new century

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The Age of Accountability

• Grand events
• DART, RAD, SMART
• Day to day teaching
• Building criteria
• Descriptive feedback
• Learning intentions

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The Performance Standards

• Describe the professional judgments of BC
  educators
• Describe what student behaviour is expected to
  look like
• Show various levels of achievement
• How good is good enough?

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• Performance based assessment -
• students applying skills concepts
• Assessment that guides instruction
• Assessment of/for/as learning

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• Appropriate Text
• Guided reading
• Literature circles

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Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children
- NRC, 1998

• Effective instruction in reading requires
  that teachers focus on
• The relationship between letters and sounds
• The process of obtaining meaning from print
• Practice for fluency

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Writing Next

• Writing Next Effective Strategies to Improve
  Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High School
  (gr.4-12)
• -Steve Graham and Dolores Perin
• Alliance for Excellent Education
• www.all4ed.org/publications/WritingNext

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• 1. Writing strategies
• 2. Summarization
• 3. Collaborative Writing
• 4. Specific Product Goals
• 5. Word Processing
• 6. Sentence Combining

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• 7. Prewriting
• 8. Inquiry Activities
• 9. Process Writing Approach
• 10. Study of Models
• 11. Writing for Content Learning

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Reading Next - Biancarosa Snow, 2004

• Instructional Improvements
• Direct, explicit comprehension instruction
• Effective instructional principles embedded in
  content
• Motivation and self-directed learning
• Text-based collaborative learning
• Strategic tutoring
• Diverse texts
• Intensive writing
• A technology component
• Ongoing formative assessment of students

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www.all4ed.org

• Infrastructure Improvements
• Extended time for literacy
• Professional development
• Ongoing summative assessment of students and
  programs
• Teacher teams
• Leadership
• A comprehensive and coordinated literacy program

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15-30

• Without -
• professional development
• ongoing formative assessment of students and
• ongoing summative assessment of students and
  programs
• Reading Next - Biancarosa Snow, 2004

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Challenges

• Staying the course
• Wise pro d
• Watching our language
• Keeping our eyes and ears and hearts on the
  learner and the learning

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Quotable? Quotes

• We are considering a new computer program to
  teach phonics to all our primary students.
• I love teaching Romeo and Juliet. It takes me at
  least 8 weeks, 10 if Im lucky.

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Quotable? Quotes

• Since the class is now going to read together,
  Ill get the ESL kids to take out their
  individual work.
• We have finally agreed upon the correct levels of
  achievement for each term for our Guided Reading
  groups.

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Looking toward tomorrow-for kids

• Real reading, writing and oral language tasks
• Choice in text and representation
• Apprenticeship teaching - gradual release
• Backward design - planning with the end in mind
• Assessment for learning
• Performance-based assessment
• High expectations/standards for all

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Looking toward tomorrow - for teachers

• Focus on student learning
• A spirit of inquiry
• Mental models of teaching/learning
• Teacher teams - to plan, to reflect, to revise
• Respectful work environments
• Professional responsibility for our autonomy
• Ongoing, inclusive, focused professional
  development - MUST enter the school and the
  classroom

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Unity in Diversity

• By Paul Sopow

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The diversities of race can be reflected by a
simple comparison.
Guitar vs Bass
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Guitar supremacy
A common electric guitar has 6 strings. Which
immediately leads to the assumption of greater
mental function and superior sound. But why do
two instruments with relatively the same shape
and the same bottom 4 strings have such intense
conflicts? Are basses really the slaves of lead
guitars? Is it the other way around? Or is it a
unity between them both that makes music.
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Racism of the ages.

• Racism has many definitions, the most common and
  widely accepted is the belief that human beings
  are divided into more than one race. Members of
  some races being essentially superior or inferior
  to members of other races.
• Racism and prejudice has always existed among
  men, but in different shapes depending on the
  time in history. The fear of the unknown is a
  natural reaction. Throughout the history people
  have made borders and strong defences to keep
  strangers out. In the effort to keep strangers
  out people are developing still stronger and more
  effective weapons. This striving toward safety
  has started several wars and killed millions of
  people. The bass can be said to be foreign to the
  guitar even though they are closely related and
  originate from the same type of instrument. This
  foreignness instils a sense of fear which leads
  to racist behaviour.

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Differences and Similarites.

• The electric bass guitar or the electric bass is
  essentially a bass stringed guitar played with
  the fingers (plucking, slapping, popping, or
  tapping) or a pick. The bass is similar in
  appearance and construction to an electric
  guitar, but it generally has a larger body, a
  longer neck and scale length, and the four
  strings are usually tuned one octave lower in
  pitch than the four lower strings of a guitar.

• An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses
  magnetic pickups to convert the vibration of
  steel-cored strings into electrical current,
  which is then amplified. The input that comes
  from the guitar can be electrically altered prior
  to being fed into an amplifier to achieve
  different effects which produces the final sound.

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• In direct relation, electric guitars could
  represent the Pashtun Muslims and the bass
  guitars could represent the Hazara Muslims. The
  guitars being the upper class with more
  privileges where as the bass is the supporting
  role which reflects the Hazara slaves.
• As stated before. Racist behaviours can be
  brought on by fear of the unknown or invasion. In
  the case of Pashtun and Hazara Muslims they are
  old enemies and fought each other for lands in
  the past. Which then leads to a protective nature
  and intense racial conflicts.