AVReading

   I know of a history teacher in a nearby school who is perhaps the most popular teacher in her building.   Her specialty is European history, and students of all abilities enjoy her class.   It is quite the production.   She uses a rich combination of storytelling, movie clips, visuals, and scaffolded notetaking that requires students to both copy down dates and names and draw pictures.   While students find her class extremely entertaining, there are some teachers who are a little more critical, pointing out that she focuses on the conspiracies of history, the graphic and gruesome deaths and battles, that she is largely asking students to consume her content rather than engage with it, and that the interest she generates in her classes does not seem to transfer over to other history classes.                   This is where it is important to delineate be...

  There is some truth to the oft quoted proverb, “Whether you believe you can or can’t, you are right.” While belief alone is not sufficient for task completion, it is necessary.   This holds true for both students, but even more importantly, for teachers and even schools. In one study, it was discovered that over the course of a year, students’ expectations of themselves often mirrored the expectations of their teachers. So teachers who expected their students to do well often did, and those who expected their students to struggle or fail often met with that fate as well (Midgley, Fedlauger, & Eccles 1989). Additionally, these results played out across entire school communities, which often compounds the effects of high-efficacy or even low-efficacy teachers.   And in one study, it was shown to be a greater predictor of success than the socio-economic status of the school’s students (Hoy, Sweetland, & Smith 2002). This is both an empowerin...

  A few years ago, Tzitel engaged students in a group activity where students had to simply move a full glass of water a few inches.   The catch was that they couldn’t touch the glass.   Instead, they   used five pieces of string, attached to a rubber band that fit around the rim of the glass.   To make matters worse, group members   were blindfolded with one unblindfolded director guiding them through the process.  The struggle is that if an individual pulls on the string to a greater degree than the others, the glass tips.  So not only do the participants have to pull the string at just the right tension, but also do so in sync with one another.  It seemed almost impossible.  I sat and watched for nearly a half an hour while seven groups worked to accomplish the feat.  Tensions began to rise, and you could sense frustration setting in.  Students had been convinced that it simply was not physically possible t...

Fink and Samuels (2008) state that within the field of reading and literacy, a tremendous amount of energy has been dedicated to the how of reading.  We focus on the mechanics of reading-- word strategies, fluency, expression -- often at the expense of the why.  But that can come at a cost.     In fact, motivation has proven to be a tremendously important indicator of how well a student does in school (Hulme 2015) .  For one reason, motivation and self regulation seem to be closely related.  Students who are willing to make an investment in their academic activities exert more energy to monitor and correct their own learning plans.  Additionally, they are able to sustain setbacks and difficulties without becoming defeated and disengaged.  According to Alderman (2008) the positive effects of motivation have been documented in primary school students, secondary school students, students with special needs, and at the post secondary level (166)....

  Early in my teaching career, I was given the opportunity to move into the honors and accelerated English classes.  It was an awesome experience, and I learned quite a bit about good and bad teaching through my experience with those very motivated and ambitious students.  After a number of years however, I knew it was time for a change, and I transitioned into the role of a reading specialist and began to work with students who really struggled both with reading and with school.  It was a dramatic shift.  In my honors classes, students would want to argue over a point they missed on their essays, papers, and tests.  In my reading intervention classes, students weren’t interested about how or why they lost a point here or there, they were more interested in why they had to do the assignment or activity in the first place.  I learned real quickly that before I could do anything to help them develop their academic literacies, I had to g...

              For my Ice Breaker this fall, I have designed an activity around the vocabulary of empowerment.   It’s fairly simple.   I grabbed 50 words from the recommended SAT Word List that had connotations of positive outcomes (e.g.   aspirational, buoyant, cerebral, illustrious etc).   Students then look up their given word and have to look up its meaning and discuss with partners how the word might reflect a positive quality they could apply to their new school year.   After sharing out their findings, I then spotlight the word “agency”—the ability to take action, to have control over one’s direction in life.   I turn it into a lesson about how we don’t need to be defined by our environment or our past or the expectations of others, but by our own hopes and dreams.   Beginning high school is one of those transitional moments when students can have the agency or autonomy...