To teach Concept Development, present a written concept definition and then explain and elaborate on what the concept means using examples that illustrate the definition (critical attribute). The “Big Idea” here is to teach concept definitions by pointing back and forth between attributes (definitions, examples, and non-examples). We call this Work the Page. Work the…
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Click the image to see an example of a Concept being taught. What is Concept Development? The Concept is the big idea or generalization contained in the Learning Objective. In Concept Development, you explicitly teach the students the concept, what it is, the generalization, the big idea. The Concept includes a written, bulletproof definition, along…
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Narrower and Deeper Look at the two 5th grade assessment questions above. The first question is from a 2012 California Standards Test. The second question is from a 2014 Smarter Balanced Common Core assessment. In the first question, students only need to remember the formula for volume and complete the calculation. In the second question,…
DetailsEach state that has adopted Common Core State Standards will select an assessment consortium to assess how children are progressing in school. The two options most widely chosen at this point are: Smarter Balanced and PARCC. Each assessment consortium has provided practice test questions and today we will review one of these questions and discuss its potential impact on classroom instruction. Below…
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PowerPoint is one of the most utilized technology tools to deliver content to students. Most teachers, if not all, have created or used a PowerPoint lesson in their classroom. Even though PowerPoint is widely used in education and has been around for a long time, most people do not use it to its full potential.…
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As an avid reader, the twists and turns of the written word have always been an interest to me. Each time I reread a book, I learn something new that I overlooked the time before. Generating this epiphany in students is the hope of most teachers. Re-reading stories is about the discovery of something that…
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With increasing expectations and new standards, it can be tempting to throw everything (including the proverbial kitchen sink) at our students. Doing so may, in fact, hinder learners’ understanding of a topic and have the opposite of the desired effect. Instead, by applying research-based strategies, we can ensure that even complex topics are presented in…
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I am a veteran, award-winning teacher who recently discovered how I could significantly improve my teaching. I did it by learning to use the research-based strategies of Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) developed by DataWORKS founders John Hollingsworth and Silvia Ybarra. When I first heard about EDI, I was frustrated, skeptical, and a bit resistant…
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Each state that has adopted Common Core State Standards will select an assessment consortium to assess how children are progressing in school. The two options most widely chosen at this point are: Smarter Balanced and PARCC. Each assessment consortium has provided practice test questions and today we will review one of these questions and discuss its potential impact on classroom instruction.…
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A chicken in every pot and an iPad in every hand Like Hoover’s promise of prosperity in the 1920s, education officials are promising students and teachers a major upgrade in technology over the next few years. This is excellent news because being technologically literate is one of the most important skill sets that students can…
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