Archive for the 'Administration' Category

ABA Ed conf

Published
by
JohnL
on 13 August 2008
in Administration, Behavior Management, News, Research and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

The Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) education conference is to be held in Reston (VA, US) in just a few weeks. Although the presence of the word “behavior” in the organization’s name may lead one to expect the conference to focus on social behavior, that is not the case. There are many members who focus their work on academic outcomes. This is not just a meeting for people interested in Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Autism, or discrete trial training.

After today, registration will only be possible at the site.

The last day to pre-register for ABA International’s 2008 Education Conference titled, “Evidence-Based Practice, Scientifically Based Instruction, and Educational Effectiveness” is this tomorrow, Wednesday, August 13th. The conference will be held on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency Reston, in Reston, Virginia near Washington D.C., during the weekend of September 5-7, 2008. After August 13th, registration will only be available on-site and will increase by $25. To pre-register for this conference, please visit http://www.abainternational.org/educonf/convreg/ .

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WWC on RM and OC

Published
by
JohnL
on 12 August 2008
in Administration, News, Reading and Research
. 0 Comments

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) published reports on two leading curricula for reading instruction in the US, Reading Mastery and Open Court Reading today. The reports essentially state that the research base for the two programs does not include studies that meet the WWC standards for evidence that can be used to assess effectiveness.

Reading Mastery is a full-year curriculum designed to provide systematic instruction in English language reading. The program teaches phonemic awareness, sound-letter correspondence, word and passage reading, vocabulary development, comprehension, and building oral reading fluency. Read the WWC’s Reading Mastery intervention report at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/beginning_reading/rdgmastery/.

Open Court Reading© is an elementary basal reading program for grades K-6. The program is designed to follow a logical progression, systematically teaching decoding, comprehension, inquiry and investigation, and writing. The WWC’s Open Court Reading© intervention report is available at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/beginning_reading/open_court/.

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In-service nightmares

Published
by
JohnL
on 5 August 2008
in Administration, Administrivia, News and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

I’ve posted a couple of entries decrying the the limp rigor and sorry quality of professional development for teachers. Having seen people attending some very good workshops recently when I was at the Reading First conference in Nashville (TN, US), I was reminded that I wanted to run a Bogus Bowl about the worst in-service sessions readers have seen.

So, I’m calling for nominations. Please send me accounts of the worst professional development sessions at which you’ve had to be present. Now, this will be a little tricky, so I’ve got to promulgate some rules for submissions.
Continue reading ‘In-service nightmares’

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Reading First national conference

Published
by
JohnL
on 3 August 2008
in Administration, Assessment, Musings and Reading
. 1 Comment
People at RF '08
Wrapping up ‘08 RF conference

As reported previously, I had the pleasure of attending the Fifth Annual Reading First National Conference. I found it a very impressive event. Although I really am flattered to be among the folks shown in the accompanying photo (l-f: Donna Scanlon, Joe Conaty, Frank Vellutino, and Katherine Mitchell), I think my favorite part of the event was hearing what the teachers, coaches, and administrators had to say.

When I hear most other folks talk about reading, they use a very different language; they talk about book tubs, word walls, high-interest books, round-robin reading, and such. When I talk with a select few colleagues about reading instruction, I am accustomed to talking about students’ performance on specific measures of component skills, altering teaching demonstrations (e.g., pacing), features of instructional presentations, scaffolding instruction systematically, and etc. For the first time in my life, I was in a place where literally 1000s of people were talking the way I am accustomed to being able to talk with only a few colleagues.

The teachers, coaches, principals, and others whom I met in Nashville know their stuff! Not only that, they know that they can help each other by collaborating using their shared language. There are powerful teams capable of excellent reading instruction scattered around the US now. They know they can teach kids to read. They have done it.

As Joe Conaty pointed out in his closing remarks, no one can take away from those teams what they now know how to do. Remembering this really makes my emotional cup full to overflowing.

Previous posts about the conference: Laura Bush’s comments (29 July 2008); pin map (28 July 2008); overview (28 July 2008).

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Petrilli on Teacher Quality

Published
by
JohnL
on 1 August 2008
in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Teacher education and The press
. 4 Comments

Over at The Education Gadfly, Michael J. Petrilli has an editorial entitled “What if ‘improving teacher quality’ isn’t THE answer?” In it Mr. Petrilli goes through a pretty thoughtful discussion of some of the reservations that have been expressed about the improve-teacher-quality path for improving outcomes for students (e.g., recruiting a la Teach for America; alternative certification; incentives for teachers who take tough assignments). Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that those paths are not likely to be fruitful.

So let’s summarize: we’re unlikely to fill all of America’s classrooms with teachers from the ranks of society’s “best and brightest.” And we’re particularly unlikely to do so in tough urban or rural areas, outside of a handful of hot cities where young college grads like to live. Which means that lots of our children–especially poor and minority children–are going to have teachers who may be good but are not likely to be great. These are teachers who themselves received so-so public school educations, attended so-so colleges, are raising families and thus probably don’t want to work sixty hours a week, but who do care about their students and want them to succeed.

Shouldn’t we be thinking about how to make these average teachers more effective, too, and augmenting them via technology and other stratagems, rather than putting all our eggs in the “superstar teacher” basket? (Look out for my thoughts about how to do that in a future Gadfly.)

I think Mr. Petrilli arrived at a close-to-right conclusion. It’s not a bull’s-eye shot (technology?), but we do need to begin helping average and below-average teachers teach more effectively. In fact, although he seems to have backed into it, teaching effectively is about our only hope for improving schools. Other solutions (recruiting smart people to teach) are still one or more steps removed from teaching effectively.

As Erin Johnson noted in one of the comments on Mr. Petrilli’s post, and echoing the very premise of Teach Effectively, what we need is less talk about teacher quality and more investment in teaching quality.

Link to Mr. Petrilli’s editorial.

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One best way?

Published
by
JohnL
on 31 July 2008
in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Research and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

The current Bogus Bowl (it’s number 5) raised questions about the professorate, with one alternative mentioning the belief that there is no one best way to teach. The answer to the question, “Is there one best way to teach?,” is surely, “No.” There are actually something like, oh, a few million ways to teach. But some of them are better than others.

Better? Yes, better. That is, some ways of teaching lead to students who score higher on trustworthy measures of declarative and procedural knowledge than the students taught using some other ways of teaching. [Some people will complain that (a) declarative and procedural knowledge are not appropriate foci for education or (b) that trustworthy measurement is impossible; those are arguments for another discussion.] Of course, Teach Effectively is about identifying and employing, and preparing others to employ those methods that meet this standard.

Fortunately, TE is not alone in the quest for use of evidence-based education. Here’s a resource that some readers will find useful. It’s from the IllinoisLoop, a source that’s been over there in the blog roll for much of the tenure of TE.

Is There ONE Best Way to Run a School?

Is there only one way to run a school?

Does rhetoric about “best practices” point to a single “best” way to teach children?

Of course not.

But ed school theorists insist that there is one “best” method. Not only that, they claim that they know exactly what it is!

Consequently, most American schools have moved to that “constructivist” approach and continue to expand its usage further in their classrooms. But mounting evidence calls the whole constructivist framework into question.

The page goes on to integrate a couple of score or a few dozen sources related to the idea in the lead that I’ve reproduced here. There’s plenty of links to good sources. The page would serve admirably as a syllabus for a course on cutting through gobbledygook and identifying clearly reasoned arguments for teaching effectively. Here’s the link. Study hard. There will be quizzes.

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Laura Bush’s comments on RF

Published
by
JohnL
on 29 July 2008
in Administration, Assessment, News, Policy and Reading
. 0 Comments

First Lady Laura Bush spoke to the Reading First conference attendees 29 July in Nashville (TN, US). Following introductory comments by Raymond Simon, US Deputy Secretary of Education, who called for “More Reading First, not less,” Mrs. Bush addressed about 5500 people for about 10 minutes.

After restating the importance of reading in contemporary society, the rationale for evidence-based reading instruction, and the importance of data-based education, Mrs. Bush cited examples of successes in Reading First schools (interrupted by cheers and applause from the representatives of those schools and educators affiliated with them who were in the audience). She ended her comments with a call for restoration of funding of the Reading First program:
Continue reading ‘Laura Bush’s comments on RF’

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RF pin map

Published
by
JohnL
on 28 July 2008
in Administration, News, Policy and Reading
. 0 Comments
The pin map
The map of pins

As promised, here’s an image of the US map showing pins placed to show the locations of people attending the conference. The two unidentified pinners waited patiently for their turn to insert their pins. Just out of view to the right, there were several more attendees waiting their turns. A larger copy of the image will open if you click on this thumbnail.

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