Reflection

     Going back over my blog posts was interesting, especially as this was my first foray into blogging and I was honestly not sure how I felt about posting my thoughts and opinions for others to critique or comment on. I will continue to blog and encourage teachers to use this tool with their students. Because of the public nature of the blog students would be more thoughtful in their responses because others would be reading them, I found I took more time when creating my posts then I might have if I was just sending papers to my professor.
     Some highlights that occurred to me after reading the blogs again were that I  feel fortunate to be in a private school that does not feel the pressure of common core or being measured by testing. Many issues that other have to overcome in curriculum are non issues at my school. Yes we have other problems that need to be overcome, such as, formally written  curriculum and review possess, but the freedom with which we teach is a perfect platform for change.
     We have the technology, resources, funding, global market, and expertise but we need the leadership to push for change. As the vision for our school unfolds and curriculum is examined, I feel prepared along with the Director of Studies, to step up and make suggestions and help guide our school to the next level.

Small Steps

     The first four chapters of HH Jacobs book are filled with so many ideas and information choosing a few key point to focus on was difficult, however, I kept going back to a couple of ideas after I had time to digest the information. I am not a big theory person, I like the tried and true concrete solutions, Curriculum 21 gives a bit of both. Two key elements HH Jacobs discusses are taking small steps and form should always follow function. Big picture ideas are great and you need a vision, but in education we sometimes jump in head first with out testing the waters. It is appealing to take small steps, adjust and move on.
     Assessment is an area she suggests taking such steps. This meaningful change will then lead to review of the content and replacement when needed. The final change will be the upgrade of skills and proficiencies, this sequence not only moves the curriculum process forward, but also allows for thoughtful change, not throwing the baby out with the bath water but focusing in on what works and doesn't work.
     These small changes add up and it will become a necessity to look at the structure of the school and how it can change to work best with the changing curriculum. I have already recruited a few teachers to start trying new assessments this year, which will hopefully inspire other to attempt some replacements. We can also look at the structure of our school in a unique way because our students live on campus so evening or weekend classes are feasible and our technology department is knowledgeable and easy to work with. With new leadership I am hopeful that teachers will be encouraged to step out of the comfort zone and experiment with the curriculum in their classes.
    

Curriculum Issue

     I was newly named the Assistant Director of the Learning Center(LC) at our school, the center works with students on skills, not in isolation but in conjunction with the classes they are taking. Each student has a leaning plan, from which we make recommendations to the teachers and modifications according to their individual needs. The issue in the LC revolves around the lack of a standard formal curriculum and assessments to make sure tasks are being accomplished.
     Every student at the LC is taught organizational, study, note taking  and test taking skills; they learn to advocate for themselves and most importantly, learn their strengths and weakness as learners. Every two weeks bi-weekies are sent to advisers to discuss with the student to get a better understanding of  how they are doing in class. A step that would help the LC is a formally written  curriculum with assessment that could show mastery or progress; one that students along with faculty could use to gage the progress students make in a concrete form. This problem is one I will focus on in my curriculum development project.

Common Core

    




  
            Although Common Core will never be mandated at our school, I believe it is important to be informed of what expectations are being placed on students across the country. If colleges use the common core to gage what knowledge students have, we need to be cognizant of what skills we are imparting on our students and make sure they are prepared for the next step, college. Reading the first two articles and not being overly informed on common core, I feel that the biggest issue that both sides can agree on is that there was not enough input from enough people and it was rushed.

            The question then is, if there was a due over could both sides come to an agreement? Other countries, such as Canada and Finland, have made it work by not penalizing or rewarding schools for the tests but using them as a tool to improve education. It seems that everyone wants to blame bad test scores on either the teacher, economics or flawed testing. If we believed our teachers were highly trained and funding was equal and many people had input into the tests, not predominantly people involved in the administration of the test, common core might not invoke so much fear and resentment. With such a bad taste in many people’s mouths over common core, and the fact that it is still moving forward, I am not sure any meaning full changes could make people accept it



    

Global Education

     With the world connecting in so many ways, understanding others points of view and references will be critical to building business relationships and a global community; introducing a language early is important as well as teaching about different cultures and religions.  With technology, reaching out to other parts of the world has become common, building a more formal curriculum and having a system in place to connect different cultures would aid in a school becoming more global.


    We are fortunate at Kents Hill to have students from over 35 countries attend our school; our students learn so much about other cultures through these friendships. Go Global and the International program are two formal organizations that bring students together. We celebrate the Chinese New Year with fireworks and special food and have an international dinner where all the international students cook foods from their culture and serve the other students. We have an exchange program with a school in England and South Africa and during our March break students in French and Spanish III visit schools in Spain and France. We also offer Chinese classes. My daughter’s best friend is from Sweden and she is always giving me facts about the country.


     I realize that most schools do not have this diversity and even though our students are exposed to many cultures we could do a lot more to promote global studies. We are looking at having a concentration in global studies; however, the reality is all of our students would benefit from this curriculum, so it should be a school wide initiative. We could also do a better job in the classroom, making our curriculum more global in all subject areas, with all the connections we have with other countries it would make sense to use those relationships to set up more exchanges and video opportunities.


     

Charter vs. Public Education

   The earth has a fever.... As soon as Guggenheims name came into the article I knew that the film she was critiquing would be full of his agenda and partial truths. As much as we would like to think a documentary is truth seeking, in Guggenheims case, it is him pushing what he believes to be the fix for public education, neglecting to look at the whole picture.


     Diane Ravitch tears apart many aspects of the film from questioning why he only focused on successful charter schools and failing public schools when the reality is both exist in equal measure. Also the fact that he focusses on Canada's schools in NYC, which receive a lot of donation and attracts top scholars who are motivated is suspect. I agree with Ravitch that his movie is mostly bunk and not thorough, however, she contradicts herself as to the reason for failure in our schools. Maybe both Ratvich and Guggenheim touch on some truths, but fail to give a definitive answer.


     Guggenhein asserts that schools are failing because out teachers are not good enough and Unions are keeping tenured teacher who are under performers. Ravitch agrees that we need a better system to fire bad teachers but suggests that classroom teachers are only 10-20% predictor of the achievement outcome.  She then goes on to point out Finland's success and attributes it to excellent teachers who are supported, contradicting that the teacher role in the student’s success. John Hattie's visible learning makes a strong case for the teacher’s large role in education; I strongly recommend reading more about visible learning.  Ravitch then goes on to say that poverty is not mentioned in the film enough as an indicator of success or failure, siting that Finland poverty is at 5% compared to the US at 20%. China comes in at 13% extreme poverty http://borgenproject.o and Sinarg/10-facts-about-poverty-in-china/living living on less than $1.25 a day, Korea is around 15%and Singapore has climbed to 28% from 16%. http://thehearttruths.com/2013/10/28/poverty-in-singapore-grew-from-16-in-2002-to-28-in-2013/  My point being that poverty might not be the biggest problem in our education system, maybe we need to start looking more closely at the dynamics of the family unit, on top of the afore mentioned issues.

Resourses

     In reading over the resourses, one that held great interest to me was the teacher training videos by Richard Stannard. As I have been learning more about curriculum and ways to make changes in my school, giving new assessments has been a target. This resourse not only gives ideas on how to change up some assessments or ways to communicate with your students it also explains how to do it. From blogger to prezi, screen casts to youtube a brief summary is given and then a link to follow. Teachers everywhere are extremely busy, so having a site that pulls many ideas and resourses together is a gift.
     Teachers are reluctant to use some technology because it may be out of their comfort zone, by using a site like this, they are given ideas that have been tried and found to be useful. Stannard is a teacher who uses  a lot of the technology he puts up on his page. As new applications and technology are coming to us at amazing speed, this site can be seen as a filter or a starting point for teachers who are less tech savy. I plan on forwardng this to a few teacher that I know would like to try something new, but have been overwhelmed with information and fear using something that may not work well.

The 16 Habits of Mind

     When we started our vision planning for our school, we were asked to take 10 minutes and write down what we want our ideal graduate to look like. When we started sharing, what amazed me was not only the amount of overlapping but the focus was not on specific acedemic skills but rather the behaviors students would need to be successful. Of course we wanted them ready for college but we wanted them to be inovative, risk takers, problem solvers, creative, the same skillful behaviors mentioned in chapter 13. The 16 Habits of Mind were exactly the types of skills, plus more, that we wanted our students to leave us with.
     If these habits are employed and continually worked on they can be used throughout life, to help one be successful, not only in school but in all situations. The author goes on to talk about metacognition, being aware, and the staircase we use to build these habits.  The way HH Jacobs laid it out was helpful, however, I believe these habits can also be taught or modeled in a less formal way. Students at our school have to play two sports, many have never played sports before, they are taking a risk. When a teacher doesnt know the answer and admits it, modeling that they don't know everthing, however, they will do research to figure it out, shows humility.
     Implementing a more formal curriculum to help  students practice these skills is a must,however, this should be extended outside of class because our students stay on campus. This gives us great opportunity to model these habits in real life situations, not only helping the students see the imporance of these habits but allowing them to execute them with guidance.
    
    

Semantic Web

     I was blown away by the idea of a Semantic Web, the internet transformed how we obtain information but a Semantic Web would change what we do with the new knowledge. Every bit of content would be shared in a way to help make meaning out of piles of information. So how do we keep moving forward in education when technological change is so rapid.
     In chapter 12 HH Jacobs states "before we gathered knowledge to become intelligence now intelligence is measured by how well we apply knowledge to ask the right questions about how to solve the word's problems". If the Semantic Web becomes reality, which is on its way, we need to prepare our students with new skills and content; what we require needs to be revamped as students can find any information they need by asking the right question in a Google search.
     We need to use different technologies for assessment and teaching but more importantly students need to be solving problems and asking questions, especially if the web can bring all the data we ask for together. This harkens back to what people have previously stated, that students need hands on, real world, problem solving skills' they need to learn how to ask questions, what the right questions are to gain the outcome or product they are seeking.
    

Blog #3 Form to Function...

      Form should follow function - Simply stated but often ignored, a perfect question to ask,does form follow function, in regards to the structures of our school and how do we create "new forms".  In regards to time, I often hear teachers say they ran out off it, or they didn't want to start something new with the period ending eventhough the students were engaged. In regards to grouping, a younger student interested in environmental studies does not have opportunity to take the class because it is reserved for seniors and PG's. I have collegues who teach math but minored in Asian studies who would love to teach a history class. What is stopping our school from changing, fear, ignorance, tradition maybe a little of each?
     My school is in the best possible position to change and create a new version, especially as we are in the midst of the Strategic plan for our school. We are also a boarding school, which allows us to create a unique schedule, as students and teachers live on campus. For the first two years of High School students do not have choices on their classes besides art and music, why not offer more trimester classes and take an in depth look at areas they find interesting, have them create a class or choose a topic. In an independent school teachers do not need to be certified to teach a certain subject so having a math teacher take on a history class should be encouraged, if they have expertice in the area.
     Another aspect that schools needs to embrace is the virtual area. We are an international school, so the idea of connecting with schools in different countries to discuss their views on issues would create a global curriculum. We are fortunate to get the perspective of our international students but they only represent 21 countries, that leaves 175 other countries to connect with. The VLM are another way for our students to gain knowledge from experts, along with other virtual classrooms. This chapter  got me really excited about the what if's, the question than becomes how to gain support for change, I think that will be the biggest challenge.
    

Blog # 2 Curriculum Mapping

          In Curriculum 21 HH Jacobs discusses curriculum mapping and although I had heard the term, I had never seen or used the software. I found an article aptly named Curriculum Mapping 101 and figured that it would be a good place to start! Some of the ideas I liked around the mapping were that it had a vertical alignment curricula, this is important as my school want to focus more on collaborative cross curricular planning and implementation. Seeing the visual would better help them plan in their disciplines, this would aid in less overlapping and more enhancement of the material.

          Teachers play an active role in mapping; they are empowered and encouraged to be leaders and make curricula decisions. In a private school setting this independence is encouraged and demanded by most teachers. Mapping is never really completed but an ongoing process; teachers need to record, reflect, study and revise.  My school is going to be requesting formal documentation of curriculum, mapping maybe an excellent option. My biggest concern once the map is made has to do with the reflection, study and revise stage, teachers have so little time during the school year and I could see resistance.

        Overall I think mapping seems like a well thought out tool in helping to organize curriculum. The active role teachers’ play can only enhance what they do with their students and cross curricular activities, mapping also will make sure standards are being met. Being in a prep school teachers have very little free time, having classes 8-3, coaching 3:30-5:30, then office hours and duty 7-12:00 am.(once a week) Weekend duties every third week, plus games on weekends and countless meeting, being on all the time because you live with your students, plus your own family activities. I only add this because I feel it will help people make sense of some of the concerns or questions around implementation I may be addressing.

Blog # 1 Curriculum Experience

   My experience with curriculum has ranged from my first classroom out of college, to aiding our RSU's  alignment with the learning results, to homeschooling my daughters through Middle School, and now helping guide my current school with curriculum questions. Of all these experience creating a home school curriculum was the most challenging, informative and rewarding endeavor, it made me realize how little I really knew about curriculum development. My past experiences with curriculum had been driven by outside forces, homeschooling allowed me to step out of the box and experiment with new ideas.
   Having the freedom to choose content and not have time constraints allowed my children to delve deeply into subject areas they found interesting. I also did not have to worry about state testing which made my job much more enjoyable. To be very honest I did keep a lot of traditional curriculum components mostly out of concern that my daughters might not be prepared for a traditional High School and I did not want to be a home school teacher flunky.
   I am very excited to learn about the new trends in curriculum as my school does not have a set documented curriculum. I know that for public school teacher this must sound crazy, however, in the prep school world it is common. Teachers have a lot of freedom and because they do not have to teach to common core or other tests they can do as they please, to a degree. Our school is defining itself though strategic planning so this is the perfect time for us to implement a new and innovative curriculum into our school.