Weekly Coaching Communication
Make it a great day -- every day!
24-28 October 2016
On the Standards Front . . .
Understanding Challenge
The Chicago Cubs are finally going to the World Series after more than a century-title drought and a 70 years-plus absence from this post-season party. In games 4, 5, and 6, the Cubs' bats finally came alive, crushing the Dodgers. In Game 6, the Cubs hit two home runs and collected 5 runs total against Dodgers' ace, Clayton Kershaw. When bats come alive like they have for the Cubs, you know hitters are finding their sweet spot. The challenge of returning to the World Series is not only complex, but it carries difficulties that can go beyond the legend of "The Billy Goat," as well.
Much like the Cubs title run, learning comes with its challenges and sweet spots. Hattie, Fisher, and Frey (2016) call for a "sweet spot for learning" so that students do not become overly bored or frustrated by the level of difficulty or complexity. Unfortunately, that sweet spot, like with each Cubs' hitter, is different for every student. So how is a teacher to manage this personalized approach to pitch to each students' sweet spot? Using teacher clarity with learning intentions, student-to-student interactions, and feedback.
Teacher Clarity with Learning Intentions:
- pretest and formatively assess to know where students are in the levels of learning
- explicitly teach the levels of learning for each student
- show students what success looks like from the beginning
Student-to-Student Interactions:
- fill your classroom with dialogue, not monologue
- use collaborative and cooperative tasks to increase the complexity of the learning
- encourage students to use language (their own words and domain specific vocabulary) to engage in the content and concepts
- design opportunities for peer tutoring
Feedback:
- Provide appropriately challenging tasks to increase engagement and foster natural curiosity
- Focus feedback on student challenges and deficits of learning (i.e. If a student shows a strong command of spelling but misspells a word in a written-draft, noting the misspelling will result in little increased learning for the student when spellcheck can provide the same feedback)
One last thought about challenge: Understanding the difference between difficult and complex tasks is essential for student learning. Tasks can fall into four quadrants (not to be confused with the four quadrants of rigor):
- low difficulty and low complexity
- high difficulty and low complexity
- low difficulty and high complexity
- high difficulty and high complexity
However, if the understanding of the difference between difficulty and complexity is still alluding us, the quadrants are meaningless. Below is a chart, courtesy of Erik M. Francis' blog (01 March, 2014) HOT/DOK "Difficulty vs. Complexity: What's the Difference?"
that distinguishes between the two:
REMINDER . . . EdCamp-CPU, 31 October, 2016
If you no longer have the email with the link provided, the form below is active for your suggestions. Remember, you can submit more than one idea and the form more than once.
Here are a few ideas that have already been submitted:
- How can we motivate students to do the practice work even when it's not graded?
- Sucks or Rocks
- What if we didn't ignore that most of the time students are bored?
- how can we help kids think more deeply
- Assistive Technologies for Special Education Students
- Writing leveled assessments (4, 3.5, 3, 2, 1, 0)
Quotation of the Week ...
Coaching Schedule -- see Google Calendar for specific "Busy" times **schedule subject to change**
LINK to Mr. Libolt's Weekly Calendar & Communication
RED RIBBON WEEK
Monday, 24 October -- FINALS/MIDTERM
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
Tuesday, 25 October -- FINALS/MIDTERM
- 9:00-10:00 AM Secondary Administrators Meeting
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
- 12:30-1:30 PM Libolt/Pope Weekly Meeting @ HS
Wednesday, 26 October END of TERM 1 -- FINALS/MIDTERM
- 7:45 AM Morning Meeting in Art Room
- @ GWAEA All Day for LCI: Plan and Design Units
Thursday, 27 October -- TERM 2 BEGINS
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
Friday, 28 October
- Serve Teachers & Students
- Research & Resources
- IC Team Task Meeting
ARCHIVE LINKS
Click on the link to access 2015-16 prior weekly communications.
Pope's IC Weekly Communication Archive & Index 2016-17
Click on the link to access prior weekly communications.
IC/Principal Weekly Meeting Notes
Click on the link to view the Friday notes.
Contact Information
Center Point - Urbana CSD
Email: epopenhagen@cpuschools.org
Phone: 319-849-1102+91015
Twitter: @Epopenhagen