project information on CultureQuest India!

What Works in Classroom Instruction
by Robert J. Marzano, et. al. http://www.middleweb.com/MWLresources/marzchat1.html .

Laura Varlas explained that “these strategies are explained in the book Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock.

1. Identifying similarities and differences
2. Summarizing and note taking
3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
4. Homework and practice
5. Nonlinguistic representations
6. Cooperative learning
7. Setting objectives and providing feedback
8. Generating and testing hypotheses
9. Cues, questions, and advance organizers
I introduced Ellen to Nine Events of Instruction by Gagne and Briggs (1979)

“Gagne and Briggs believe different conditions are required for different learning outcomes. The nature of the events of instruction also differs for each type of learning outcome.

1. Gaining attention
2. Informing the learner of the objective
3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning
4. Presenting the stimulus material
5. Providing learning guidance
6. Eliciting the performance
7. Providing feedback about the performance
8. Assessing the performance
9. Enhancing retention and transfer

as described by Yanyan Yong, Ph.D. at http://www.tcc.edu/faculty/webpages/YYong/Idesign/events.htm

 and to Hunter Model Lesson Plans

1) Anticipatory Set – Getting students ready and/or excited to accept instruction.  (Please note that giving directions may be part of the procedural dialog of a lesson, but in and of themselves directions are NOT an Anticipatory Set !!!!! The key word here is “anticipatory” — do something that creates a sense of anticipation in the students — an activity, a game, a discussion, view a film or video clip, field trip, reflective exercise, etc.. )

 2) Stated Objectives – Letting students know where they are going. 

 3) Input Modeling/Modeled Practice – Making sure students get it right the first time by showing and demonstrating.

 4) Guided Practice – Making sure students have it right! Can they replicate what you want them to do?

 5) Independent Practice – Doing it by themselves. 

6) Closure – Bringing it all to a close – one more time. What did they accomplish?  What did they learn?

as described at http://www.uwsp.edu/Education/lwilson/lessons/hunter/huntindex.htm .

I have always thought that there was  a connection between Gagne and Briggs and Madeleine Hunter’s model.  The Marzano et. al. model included much of what researchers have found supports instruction. 

Can we teach peace?  Each of these words should be examined.  Can – able or granted permission.  We – a teacher-students setting or all people.  Teach – in schools, via media, by living, by example, … Peace?  What is peace?  The absence of war.  An easy feeling.  Lack of responsibility.  Being whole.  A world in order.

Is there a field of study known as peace education?  Searching on ”Peace Education” on the internet leads to UNESCO’s  holistic, constructivistic yin-yang symbol with teacher as learner (theory) and learner as teacher (curriculum). 

 http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/peace/home.asp

They define the aims of peace education is “to cultivate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to achieve and sustain a global culture of peace.”  A diagram at

http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/peace/frame.htm

contrasts violence – direct and indirect, with peace as the absence of personal and institutional violence and positive measures such as presence of wellbeing, social justice, gender equity, human rights.

There is a Peace Education Foundation that offers a catalog of curriculum and materials, correlates to state standards, and information on their history – organized in 1980, list of accomplishments and projects -

http://www.peace-ed.org/

Education for Peace – http://www.efpinternational.org/ - the website of the International Education for Peace Institute – is “a comprehensive community development program dedicated to the establishment of an all-inclusive civilization of peace.”

I am looking for a source for the origin of the song “Down by the Riverside” (also see http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=58101) that includes “lay down sword and shield.”  Jewish communities sing a version of the song that includes -

Lo yisah goi el goi cherev
Lo yilm’du od milchama

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.
They shall not learn more war.

-  ”from one of the best known phrases of the prophet Isaiah: “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah, Chapter 2, v 4.)”

 http://www.jccathisnewmonth.org/5767/Tevet/tevetson1.asp

I did a search on “peace education” in the online catalog of the CSU system and found that peace education and peace studies were not listed.  Military studies was also not listed, but military education has 235 citations in CONSULS – The Connecticut State University Library System.  

So I looked into other related terms, such as intercultural & international education and cross-cultural education and found 4 books to review. 

 50) Title Rethinking multicultural education : case studies in cultural transition / edited by Carol Korn and Alberto Bursztyn ; foreword by Joe Kincheloe 
Publisher Westport, Conn. : Bergin & Garvey, 2002
LC1099.3.R49 2002   

papers from Brooklyn College, transformative multicultural education to overcome despair, individual case studies

51) Author Clayton, Jacklyn Blake  Title One classroom, many worlds : teaching and learning in the cross-cultural classroom / Jacklyn Blake Clayton 
Publisher Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann, c2003

orientations in a multicultural classroom – human nature, person-nature, time, activity – being is more important than doing, relational

52) Title Critical multicultural conversations / edited by Greg S. Goodman and Karen Carey 
Publisher Cresskill, N.J. : Hampton Press, c2004
LC1099.3 .C75 2004   

students of Peter McLaren, individual case studies of minority groups, deep culture concerns, laptop study – on what the students related to the machines and each other
53) Title Culturally proficient instruction : a guide for people who teach / Kikanza Nuri Robins … [et al] 
Publisher Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Corwin Press, c2006
LC1099.3.C845 2006   
 
includes as author, Dean Raymond Terrell from CSULA, now in Ohio, terrelr@muohio.edu

continuum towards cultural proficiency – page 3

cultural destructiveness
cultural incapacity
cultural blindness
cultual precompetence
cultural competence

cultural proficiency – holding esteem for culture, knowing how to learn about individual and organizational culture, interacting effectively in a variety of cultural environments

The falls in the Quiet Corner are busy as people prepare for the winter and get in their last outings before the snows fall. This week was one of conferencing, thinking about travels, and, changes in the season. I participated in the CT-CEC conference at Eastern on 10/28, a Minority Teacher Recruitment conference at Central CSU on 10/30, a virtual conference on eportfolio.org – online computer and telephone connections – on 10/30 in the afternoon, a videoconference organized by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities – http://www.aascu.org – about efforts on CSU, Long Beach and CSU, Northridge to “Build Evidence Systems for Accountability and Improvement in Teacher Education” on November 1, and the New England Educational Assessment Network conference – http://neean.southernct.edu/ at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, MA on Friday, November 3. Three local conferences – one on campus with people, one on campus in the Child and Family Development Resource Center using the videoconferencing facilities, one on campus in my office using the web and a telephone conference, and two regional conference – 35 miles still in Connecticut, 60 miles in Massachusetts. One travels before the snow falls.

Here are some of my notes from the week of Friday, 10/27 – 11/3/06.

Friday, 10/27 – Sabbatic leave letters came out this afternoon. Four of 5 applicants from Ed Dept were ranked below 10. President Nuñez confirmed at her last small group reception – based on alphabetic order – that CSU system allocates 64 sabbatic leaves, with Eastern CSU assigned 10.

10/28 – Connecticut Chapter of the Council for Exceptional Children conference at Eastern CSU, organized by Delar Singh, CT-CEC Chapter President and Associate Professor, Special Education, and Ann Gruenberg, CEC Division for Early Childhood Representative and Associate Professor, Early Childhood Education.

Terrible rain storms had people worried about the roads and flooded basements.

The keynote was presented by Dr. George Sugai, fairly new to UCONN and the east coast, leader of the Positive Behavior program used at Windham Middle School. Project website is at http://www.pbis.org/ . He discussed research measures – RTI – response to intervention, results that are similar to pandemic triangle from public health – most are successful, some will succeed with some intervention, a few will need intensive intervention. Other interesting points – tracking referals in urban schools suggested growth during periods when public assistance checks are distributed, school intervention plans have been successful in changing triangles.

Afternoon keynote – Dr. Kathleen Whitbread, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, UCONN, Center for Development Disabilities, who discussed the PJ case in Connecticut

P.J., ET AL Plaintiffs V. STATE OF CONNECTICUT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, ET AL Defendants http://www.simsbury.k12.ct.us/boardofed/specialservices/pdf/SA_Synopsis02.pdf

and implications on policy. Interesting changes in terminology from mental retardation to ID – intellectually deficient, DD -developmentally disabled?, parental rights for placement in general class, bicultural wedding of DS couple – http://www.sujeet.com/

10/30 – Connecticut Regional Educatonal Service Center (CREC) Minority Teacher Recruiting (MTR) Alliance, at CCSU – keynote – Chancellor David G. Carter, CSU – need for mentoring, making education more accessible and responsive to learners’ needs and stage, troops to teachers programs. Panel – alternate route to certification, preschool initiatives in Hartford Public Schools, Southern CSU’s mentoring project with students from New Haven. Breakout – articulation between community college and 4 year universities – need for online resources like SDE list of courses for US history 50-year survey. Mentioned Eastern’s ECE program articulation agreement with state’s community colleges. (Need to research # of transfer students in teacher education.) Lunch speaker – Calvin Hudson, soon to retire as Executive VP, Claims, The Hartford Insurance Group- diversity led to greater productivity, recruiting required diverse pool on short list for hires.

3:00 – Back at Eastern – Diane Goldsmith, CTDLC – online meeting/demo of the eportfolio program – http://www.eportfolio.org/ – using Breeze & speaker phone, may have 25 to offer to graduate students

Right after this online conference, I received an email from fulbrightteacherexchange@swiftpage4.com pointing to an added 6-week international work shadow opportunity for teacher educators. I spread the word in the department and to other chairs and received informal support from Dean Kleine to purse the adventure

5:30 – Windham Community Memorial Hospital Board of Directors meeting – flu shot, presentation by Essent president – http://www.essenthealthcare.com/

10/31 – Halloween in Willimantic – Our 6th grader has learned to use the telephone and went with some girl friends trick or treating, while their mothers shadowed them, in the neighborhood. The businesses and organizations on downtown Main Street again offered candy to trick or treaters and there was the annual flashlight candy egg hunt in Jillson Square, the site of the immigrant community that was urban renewed in the 1980s into an open green. At home, the woman of the house, dressed as a clown, gave out candy to the young kids that came by until 8:30. My custome for Halloween – a cowboy shirt that I inherited from my father, a poncho from Juarez, and a blue felt hat from Peru.

11/1 – Dean Kleine hosted a videoconference on “Building Evidence Systems for Accountability and Improvement in Teacher Education” using the videconferencing facilities in the Child and Family Development Resource Center. The videoconference organized by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities – http://www.aascu.org about efforts on CSU, Long Beach and CSU, Northridge featured the CSU mosaic
http://www.nctaf.org/documents/CSUHandout.pdf that focuses on graduate & supervisor surveys and data from classroom; the Teachers for a New Era project at CSUN – http://www.csun.edu/tne/ discussed by Beverly Cabello at CSUN, and the Urban Teaching Academies project at CSULB -
http://www.nctaf.org/resources/demonstration_projects/urban_teaching/index.htm. Our group at Eastern wanted to learn more about the connections of these projects with NCATE standards and accreditation and were interested in hearing that the use of a raffle for several iPods did result in about a 50% return rate on surveys.

11/2 Received trees in mail from Nat’l Arbor Day on 11/1. Felt need to plant in the rain – building a Japanese lilac hedge to edge of forest, cutting away at thorned vines

11/3 New England Educational Assessment Network, Goddard lot for a 7:15am departure – Peter Bachiochi, Jian-Zhong Lin, Jaime Gomez, David Stoloff, met Kin Chan, Riette Pranger, Robynn Shannon, Rhona Free – 9 rep, ~118 institutions, Johnson & Wales – 12, Keene State – 10

Dick Gerber – NEean President, greetings, future academic budget based on assessment

Keynote -Susan Hatfield, Winona State Univ. , MN – measure what you value, valuing what you measure, closing assessment loop, NESI & ESI – student engagement, look at budget to determine what valued, components – primary traits, students will be able to <<action verb>> <<something>>, use of
Bloom’s taxonomy verbs

http://www.winona.edu/air/

Breakouts – From Shoebox to Showcase!! E-Portfolio Management System, UMaine @ Augusta – student, faculty, employer access, email contacts, asked about interface with course management systems

Southern CSU presentation – improving student engagement, technology, and faculty development, Joe Polka – use of BCSSE & NSSE (shops?) – engagement models, 2-yr survey – ~80 of 360 not retained, nsd in GPA or persistence – working with classmates; David Petroski – use of a Wiki – Papert background, syllabus with blank calendar & no textbook, student select textbook, group structure course, class-wide project, individual projects; Ellen Beatty – satisficing – admin concerns, SCSU – not best liberal arts, strengths in grad studies, faculty development – 50 stipended “good teachers” faculty in August; Summer Tech – $499 allowance, 25 faculty with 5 star student assistants – diverse learners, use of 7 principles for good practice – may be starting point but doesn’t include tech changes since 90’s

lunch with Framingham State – Bridget Galvln, critical thinking presenter at Eastern – Aug ‘06

Johnson & Wales Univ. – 4 US campuses, professional college, session on critical thinking, ethical responsibility, & writing competency – assessment cycle, essay with ethical issues written in course, instructors have originals and may not be volunteer readers; training for inter-rater reliability & uniformity of method – developing, validated, master writer, developing writers can’t graduate, not assess own students, same prompts at same time of semester – reading 250 essays – $500/reader – structural, transitions, most hand written; skills in ethics course – essays assessed for critical thinking and ethics, hired part-time faculty coordinator for fac dev for critical thinking, support – Plato’s Café – students only, panels, faculty dev, post ethical assignment – topics – Zimbarbo experiment, electro-convulsive therapy, Bill Gates; grad writing requirement, essay contests/academic fair, D=developing – must pass a tuition-free workshop – 11 weeks, can test out, intensive training in grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure, must pass to graduate. faculty in-service on writing across curriculum, guest speakers, writing intensive course – at least15 pages, 10 by first half of the semester.

The Fulbright opportunity reminded me of an opportunity I saw on a bulletin board to join the Peace Corps College Degree program. These days an email may change the course of one’s life. Notes on applying for this opportunity will be featured in other weekly essays in November.

There is still some color on some trees. The weather has turned cooler. Hope that you have warm home to rest in as the season changes.

A report on the CECA Conference, October 23, 2006, Cromwell, Connecticut (the attached WORD document includes a chart for the earthquake exercise and better access to the links)
 

CECA is the Connecticut Educators Computer Association – http://www.ceca-ct.org/ .  CECA seems to be at a crossroads – it has outgrown school or hotel conference spaces.  Next year, the conference will be in conjunction with CEMA – http://www.ctcema.org/ – Connecticut Educational Media Association – the professional association of Connecticut school library media specialists/
 

After the hour-long trip from Willimantic to Cromwell, passing Hartford and heading down 91, my colleague, Dr. Cathy Tannahill, and I arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in time to join the crowds at the registration desks who were picking up the conference materials, which included a iPod Nano kit (http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/ ).
 

1) The keynote speaker was David Warlick.  His “Landmarks for Schools” website – http://landmark-project.com/ – receives 6 million visits a month and is
 

 “dedicated to the idea that the very nature of information is changing, practically before our eyes. It is changing in what it looks like, where we find it, what we look at to view it, what we can do with it, and how we communicate it. Here you will find information and tools designed to help us redefine literacy for the 21st Century.”
 

Mr. Warlick emphasized that it isn’t the new technology tools that should be the focus, it is how these tools may be used in combination with Web 2.0 – growing applications on the web, to enhance learning and teaching.  The session conference notes are posted at http://72.32.86.225/wordpress/?p=111 .
 

There was an impressive example of using data from the web – in this case, seismic activity data imported into EXCEL to recreate the “ring of fire” on the tectonic plates.  
 

1)     Go to http://landmark-project.com/page.php?stamp=&pn=4&psn=&cat=22 – the Raw Data link from http://landmark-project.com/ .
 

2)     Choose the ANSS Catalog Search - http://www.ncedc.org/cnss/catalog-search.html
 

3)     Choose Catalog in readable format .
 

4)     Set beginning and end times – time and date – year/month/day, hour – 0:00:00 is midnight.  I chose the month of October 1989 -  1989/10/01, 0:00:00 as the start date and 1989/10/31, 0:00:00 as the end date.
 

5)     Set Min magnitude: – I chose 3 – a small earthquake.
 

6)     I chose only earthquakes.  You may play with the other variables.
 

7)     Submit request.
 

8)     Highlight and copy the table that will appear for world-wide earthquakes for the time you chose.
 

9)     Open a blank EXCEL spreadsheet and paste the table.  Under DATA, choose Text to Columns, and follow the wizard to set the columns.
 

10)  Use the chart/graph tool to create a chart of the data.  Please note that latitude is a vertical measure and longitude is a horizontal measure.  I found it useful to move the longitude column to the left of the latitude column in the data.  Highlight the data in the spreadsheet.
 

11) Click on the Chart Wizard in the EXCEL menu bar and choose XY Scatter and the diagram with the legend – Scatter.  Compares pairs of values. 
 

12)  Click Next and you should see the beginning of your chart with the data range at something that includes the two columns of data – =Sheet1!$C$1:$D$868, the longitude and latitude data.
 

13) Click Next and label the chart with Earthquakes – the period of time you selected, value of x axis should be longitude, value of y axis should be latitude.
 

14) Click Next and save as a chart.  Click Finish.
 

15)  Copy the chart to a Word document. 
 

(There is a chart in the WORD document.)
One may begin to see the effects of tectonic dynamics for this chart of only one month’s of seismic activity.  Note the coasts of the Pacific Rim and the earthquake activity.
 

Mr. Warlick also provided a good example of why students need to learn to question sources on the internet.  A student might search for information on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and find http://martinlutherking.org/ as a resource.  Students should be instructed to research the origin of sites.  This site does not provide an About Us link but does link to Hosted by Stormfront http://www.stormfront.org/forum/ which is the White Pride World Wide website.

The session on The Flattening of the Web provide a tutorial on blogging, with a recommendation that educators are using

http://www.Edublogs.org . 

Other online resources discussed included http://k12online.org  – What you need, when you need it,

http://classblogmeister.com/ - which has this disclaimer Standard Disclaimer message:
The views and opinions expressed by authors published in this blogging tool are not those of David Warlick or The Landmark Project. This is an instructional publishing tool and not a source for authoritative information.  

http://blogger.com – a blogging tool bought by Google
 

http://www.bloglines.com/ – “Create a personal Bloglines page loaded with the freshest news about the things you love.”

  
http://www.Gaggle.net  – Thousands of schools use the Gaggle Network to provide safe, teacher-controlled email accounts for students.
 

http://Imbee.com  – The first secure social networking and blogging destination for kids.
 

http://Epals.com – ePALS Classroom Exchange® maintains the Internet’s largest community of collaborative classrooms engaged in cross-cultural exchanges, project sharing and language learning.

   
http://technorati.com/ – online statistics on technology application uses, including video blogs – Currently tracking 57.4 million blogs
 

Mr. Warlick explained RSS feeds -  RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites – Really Simple Syndication.  

The session concluded with a discussion of the power of the Web and other technology tools to expand student learning.  Mr. Warwick showed us the Sweatshop Video from the SFETT web site and the URL is: http://www.sfett.com/movie.php?mov=2-sweatshops
 

2) During the second session, I visited a presentation on the use of video/MP3 players by middle school students to share multimedia projects, particularly on Anne Frank and the Museum of the Holocaust.  The middle school students developed museum tours for others who were not able to go to DC for the class trip.  I also went to a session for a few minutes on setting up podcasting on a server and another session on web publishing design issues. 

Passing the vendors – lots of printers, smart boards, software publishers, including PBS and the Discovery Channel, and a Lego vendor whom I went to high school with in Oceanside, NY – the hotel was filled with teachers, school administrators, consultants, and educational faculty university faculty members, with hardly sufficient seats for the bag lunches.
 

3) For the third session, I attended a presentation by Stephen Wilmarth, Program Director, The Center for 21st Century Skills – http://skills21.org/ , which is sponsored by the Education Connection in Litchfield, CT.   This session expanded on Mr. Warlick’s presentation by emphasizing the importance of ownership by students and teachers of their websites, the potential changes in technology that would allow for greater access, and the need to focus on skills development for students who will be changing positions and responsibilities throughout their lives.

Notes from the CECA conference – 102306 WORD file