Read Like a Writer / Write Like a Reader

Here's the link to the handouts!

Data-Driven Learning--What's Needed Most

Because it will lead to a strong motivation to succeed, student ownership of their education is what is needed most in education today. All over the district where I'm employed, I see teachers meet. They pour over the test results, they look at the questions, they talk about why so many kids missed a particular item--Did they guess? Did they get tricked? Were they tired? Did they not know what the word ___ meant? Though this is certainly a productive way for teachers to be spending their time together, I'd also like to see them doing more of the same practice with their students. With enough information and practice, the students will tell you, and each other, their own thinking processes.

It's absolutely amazing what students can learn from one another. It's also amazing what educators can learn from students. After all, who can tell you what an individual was thinking better than the person who was doing the thinking? By teaching students to reflect on how they learn and by developing their skills to pursue their learning goals, students will be given the power to change from passive recipients of information to active controllers of their learning.

With the implementation formative and summative assessments, there's no shortage of performance data. I wonder how many teachers share the data with the kids and solicit ideas from them. Why not make the most of those assessments? Knowledge is power for everyone, adults and kids. There should be not only data-driven instruction, but data-driven learning.

Promoting data-driven learning in the classroom will result in an evolution of the teacher’s role-from teachers-as-experts to teachers-as-facilitators. Learners will be empowered by the promotion of student involvement in learning. Students will have the opportunity to develop skills that support learning throughout life, and learners will assume personal responsibility for learning. That’s what’s needed most!

Recommended Reading: "Reading Reasons" by Kelly Gallagher

Why do you read? Why is reading important to you as a teacher and as a person? What benefits have you gained in life because of your ability to read fluently and to understand a variety of different text structures? Exactly where would you be without reading?

Reading has opened many doors for me. College was made easier because the difficult text presented was easily understood. I've been able to advance in my career partly due to my public speaking and writing abilities. Those skills come naturally to anyone having so many waking hours in a book, immersed in language.

To be sure, the reasons for reading are numerous. You can probably give many as well —but are they apparent to your students? Can your students answer why they read, or do they read simply because they have to? Do they itch to complete book reviews and to participate in literature circles, or are they going through the motions, satisfying the requirements of your class?

Reading is as essential to your students as it has been for you, but almost none of them know why. Many have lost (or never had to begin with) the joy that good books can provide, and they do not understand how great a loss that is. What's more, the majority of the adults in their lives have never fully explained the benefits of reading. It is as if the importance of reading is a secret.

If reading is going to be presented as a worthwhile activity in your classroom, this secrecy has to end! It is your job as a teacher to help your children recognize the role that reading plays in their lives, and Kelly Gallagher's book Reading Reasons can help you to do that.

Gallagher, a long-time high school English teacher in California, realized one day that few of his students could fully explain the role that reading plays in their lives. Together, he and his students began to outline specific reasons that reading matters. What they came up with was the following list of nine reading reasons:

1. Reading is rewarding.
2. Reading builds a mature vocabulary.
3. Reading makes you a better writer.
4. Reading is hard, and "hard" is necessary.
5. Reading makes you smarter.
6. Reading prepares you for the world of work.
7. Reading well is financially rewarding.
8. Reading opens the door to college and beyond.
9. Reading arms you against oppression.

Gallagher then took these ideas and created 40 motivational mini-lessons designed to convince middle and high school students of the importance of reading in their lives. Those mini-lessons have become the core of Reading Reasons.

Each lesson is designed to take between 5 and 20 minutes to teach. They share convincing information about each reading reason and can be implemented in classrooms across the curriculum. Complete with specific directions and all related materials, these reading "booster shots" (as Gallagher describes them) are approachable and easy to use.

Reading Reasons also includes a collection of valuable documents in its appendix. Lists of books appropriate for middle and high school students, samples of letters that can be sent to parents, and reading records that Gallagher has used in his career are all provided for teachers interested in making reading a central part of their classrooms.

In the end, no matter what we teach, each of us wants to instill an appreciation for reading in our students. Reading Reasons helps to make that possible. It is an essential resource that teachers of all levels will find immediately rewarding!

It's August, Teachers, Happy New Year!

That’s right, Happy New Year! One of the best things about our professions is that we get not one, but two New Years celebrations! New Year’s Day is the most celebrated holiday on the planet, though we don’t all celebrate it on the same day.

In Asia, New Year’s Day is tied to the lunar calendar, so the date is not constant. It is recognized as a period between the harvest, and the next planting season, and a time for fresh beginnings. In the West, New Year’s Day is tied to the Gregorian calendar and of course takes place on January 1st. In both cases, it is a time to look back and to look forward. Even the month of January, when Westerners celebrate
the New Year, is named after the Ancient Roman god, Janus, the god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings.

Then there’s the Educator’s New Year which will be taking place as your students arrive for classes soon. This August, there will be little champagne or fireworks, but as always there will be the promise that accompanies new beginnings. For many of us this time of year is one to take serious stock and plan new courses of action to improve our professional lives. An old European New Years custom says that “What one does on the first day of the year, one will do for the rest of the year.”

With this philosophy in mind, it might be a good time to reexamine your personal and professional values if it’s been a while since you’ve done so. This exercise might also include the planning of new courses of action, or resolutions. This August could be just the time to start some new habits. Perhaps you want to work on being more patient with your students, to become more consistent in providing differentiated to your students, to improve yourself as a professional by going back to school, or to work more closely with your team. Whichever you choose for yourself, these resolutions are an expression of your aspirations.

Making resolutions implies that you are in control of your self and that you are NOT a victim controlled by the stars, guided by fate, or led around by luck. You are an individual who can make choices and changes in your life. Your professional and personal lives are in your own hands.
So fill that glass to the brim with your values and drink up. Happy New Year!

Some Thoughts on Obtacles

What is an obstacle? Webster’s Dictionary defines an obstacle as ‘that which impedes or hinders progress, motion, activity, or effect’.

The definition might imply to some that obstacles are always negative things, but not always. Traffic laws could be considered obstacles. They restrict the freedom of lead foot or otherwise irresponsible drivers from affecting the safety of the public. Traffic laws are good obstacles.

Obstacles however, more often than not, negatively affect us. Obstacles can be internal,such as shyness. They can also be external, like the obstacle of poverty. I see drivers everyday (sometimes blatantly) overcome the obstacles of traffic laws, and this leads me to wonder; what percentage of obstacles can be overcome? 20%? 50% 90%? The longer I think about it, the more I tend to think that a high percentage of obstacles CAN be overcome if an individual is willing to do what it takes to overcome the obstacle.

Many of our students face obstacles, some are serious and some rather benign. Poverty, physical impairments, the learning of a second language, a dysfunctional home life are just some of the serious obstacles that our students face.

I believe that one of my primary jobs as an educator is to encourage my students to deal effectively with their obstacles. Whenever possible, I try and share my belief that most obstacles can be overcome. I’ve seen art painted by the blind that is beautiful, I’ve seen a man climb a mountain with no arms or legs. I want my students to understand that it is ATTITUDE that can knock down obstacles.

Check out this video. It features a 14 year old named Aaron Fotheringham who can do amazing things in his wheelchair. Born with spina bifida, Aaron has been confined to a wheelchair for most of his life. He has the kind of attitude that has allowed him to overcome an obstacle that many would think insurmountable.

A Matter of Time

Time. We are all prisoners of it. That fact is especially evident in the classroom. We try to make more of it (think Saturday school, extended day, homework). The fact is, the way we look at time and how we use it is a major factor in determining student success.

Up until now, everything I knew about time, I learned from watching “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek,” so I was eager to find out about a new way of looking at time from D.C. Berliner's work, Simple Views of Effective Teaching and a Simple Theory of Classroom Instruction.. Time is, of course, a limited resource, and it is often looked at metaphorically as something ‘that runs out’. Time can be looked on in other ways as well, something we can affect.

Berliner tells us that time at school can be divided into 4 different categories: Allocated, instructional, engaged, and academic learning time.

The largest category of time, making up 100%, is allocated time. Allocated time is the amount of time set aside by the legislature. It’s our 180 days from 8:00 a.m. until 3:10 p.m. We all make efforts to increase allocated time with extended day, after-school tutoring, Saturday school, and of course homework. Allocated time can also be further broken down by subject area. Scheduling affects the allocated time to various subjects throughout the day.

The next category of time is called instructional time. Research shows that instructional time represents about 90% of allocated time. Instructional time is the time that a teacher can be observed teaching. It can be whole group, small group, or individual instruction. Instructional time can be increased by good classroom management and the minimization of outside distractions.

Engaged time, which represents about 75% of allocated time, is the time that students spend actually engaged in a task. The concept of engaged time does NOT take student success into account. Therefore, while engaged, students may be bored, or they may be struggling or frustrated. Motivating students, scaffolding instruction, and tapping into prior knowledge all serve to increase engaged time.

The final type of time, and the most valuable, is referred to by researchers as academic learning time. It is the time the learner is engaged in appropriate activities that are closely related to improved academic performance. Unfortunately, academic learning time only makes up about 35% of allocated time. Educators can seek to increase this precious type of time by giving effective feedback, helping students recognize success, attributing success to effort, and creating self-directed learners.

It is true that we can’t make more time, and even without supporting research, it seems fairly obvious that the more time we spend on a task, the more we learn. Research has verified that this relationship exists for academic activities. But simply assigning more study time to a topic will not automatically increase the student's learning. There are strategies to reallocate, or reshape the kinds of time that we are using during the day. Research shows a positive relationship between the amount of academic learning time and student achievement so the idea here is to increase the desirable academic learning time to the maximum amount possible. This, while at the same time decreasing unproductive portions of the other, less desirable types of time.

Berliner's research has shown that successful teachers who maximize academic learning time spend a great deal of time actively instructing their students through interactive lessons that feature teacher-student discourse and relatively little time working without guidance. They stimulate their students to react to the curriculum in a thoughtful and successful manner. For the most successful teachers, instruction occurs during interactive discourse with students rather than during extended lectures, presentations, or demonstrations. It is this combination of quantity and quality that defines effective academic learning time.

Are Your Students Highly Engaged or Strategically Compliant?

The Schlechty Center on Engagement tells us that when students are not fully engaged, they are often strategically compliant. They are working and learning, but there is no heartfelt commitment. Though learning is taking place, strategically compliant students are less likely to remember the information and use it in other situations. Strategic compliance has the appearance of success, but the students are not engaged in deeper learning.

In engagement, students have high attention and high commitment. These students are in optimal learning. When students are optimally engaged, they want to go that extra mile. They want to write that extra paragraph, they want to stay in from recess to work on that project. These are the kids that tend to excel on standardized tests.

The benefits of fostering high student engagement are obvious. The Schlechty Center on Engagement has compiled a list of ten things that you can do to help your students to be highly engaged in your classroom.

1. Expect excellence and provide plenty of support.
2. Know your students’ learning styles and vary the delivery of the lesson so that it meets those learning styles.
3. Allow students to interact (Think/Pair/Share, learning partners, collaborative groups, etc).
4. Provide opportunities for student ownership of learning (goal setting, student created learning materials, sharing examples of excellent work, etc.)
5. Give specific positive and negative feedback (5:1 ratio).
6. Make the learning relevant.
7. Teach with energy and show enthusiasm for the subject.
8. Avoid down time and vary the pace.
9. Design the course to provide opportunities for success.
10. Manage so that all students are active participants

Thanksgiving 2013: Thank You Teachers!

You are not only teachers; you are good friends, philosophers, guides, and heroes. On a daily basis you wipe noses and tie wet shoelaces. You mediate disputes between students and maintain order among 25 or more different (and sometimes difficult) personalities. You make sure that children who are hungry are fed and those without a jacket are given one. You watch and protect your students. Throughout it all, you strive to encourage a love of learning into each and every child you meet.

Thank you for teaching character and for working to make our schools safer. Thank you for caring, for putting in the extra hours and the extra thought to make sure classroom lessons help our students to succeed. Thank you for preparing future generations for participation in our diverse democracy. Everyone should be thankful for you on this Thanksgiving Day! I am!

Outstanding Picture Books to Teach Reading and Writing Strategies

Scaredy Squirrel has a problem. He only feels safe at home in his nut tree. That’s the premise of the three Scaredy Squirrel titles, authored by Melanie Watt. As I’ve written before, I love using picture books to teach certain reading strategies. To me, authentic reading includes any reading that would be done voluntarily, outside of the classroom, either for enjoyment or for information. I believe that the Scaredy Squirrel series meets my definition of ‘authentic reading’.

Though the reading levels of the books hover around the 3^rd grade level, Scaredy Squirrel is at level 3.6, Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend is 3.0 and Scaredy Squirrel Goes to the Beach is 3.6, I feel that’s it’s perfectly acceptable using this text to teach 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and even 5^th graders. The way the Watt organizes the text is perfect for giving kids practice and background knowledge with organizing information and representing it in graphic organizers and Thinking Maps. Each of the titles also gives good illustrations on what motivates characters and how they undergo changes.

If ever there was a series of books about facing your fears of change, this is it! Not just for kids, Scaredy Squirrel has a meaningful (and hilarious!) lesson for all of us about trying new things and experiencing the world in new ways. It’s a great reading choice for students going through life changes: new school, new home, new city, or a new relationship. I’ve read this book to 2^nd-5^th graders; they all roared with laughter, and afterwards, several students wanted to make up their own version using a different animal. It is great fun as a read-aloud, but the kids also loved looking at it in small groups--they seemed to find some new detail each time.

The humor in the book will appeal to adults and kids, too. Watt pokes fun at people who are afraid of everything, but it's a sympathetic sort of fun. We can tell that she's been there, too. We know what to expect from the warning on the very first page: "Warning! Scaredy Squirrel insists that everyone wash their hands with antibacterial soap before reading this book."

The vocabulary in the book doesn't talk down to kids. For instance: "He'd rather stay in his safe and familiar tree than risk venturing out into the unknown." Venturing-kids ought to know what venturing is. Venturing is the basis for adventure, after all.

Happy Birthday Dav Pilkey!

Today marks the 46th birthday of one of my favorite children's authors, the great Dav Pilkey. Dav’s experiences in school can teach teachers a lot, especially about how we look at the abilities and potential of our more challenging students. Check out this link for some interviews with Dav.

What is 'Teaching to the Test?'

One of the worst things a teacher can be accused of doing is ‘teaching to the test.’ What does that really mean, though? Think of the weekly classroom spelling test. On Mondays, I introduce the 20 spelling words for the week. Students have the list that they can refer to anytime before the test, the list is right in their spelling text! I even assign homework to make them more familiar with the spelling of the words, the exact same words that will be on the test. On Wednesday, we take a practice spelling test. When Friday comes, I administer the big test pretty much in the same way that we have been practicing them all week. Am I being unethical or inappropriate? Am I teaching to the test?

In their book Deep Curriculum Alignment, English and Steffy tell us that “teachers are hired to teach a curriculum, not a test.” When a state exam like the STAAR test is not aligned to a district’s curriculum, educators are put in a confusing, moral dilemma. What types of activities should they plan for their students that will help them to be successful on the STAAR test? So educators end up using Released STAAR items (or a variation of them) available on the internet. Luckily for teachers in my district, the curriculum IS aligned with the assessment.

I believe that when those teachers are using Released STAAR items, they are attempting to align their instruction with STAAR, to the benefit of their students. This is not ‘teaching to the test,’ it is instructional alignment. Instructional alignment is an example of equitable, excellent classroom instruction. Let me add, however, that by using Released STAAR items, I mean using them in way that is authentic and engaging - not just worksheets.

Just as when a curriculum is back-loaded, or designed around an assessment, teachers who properly link the content of their lessons to STAAR are providing ‘back-loaded instruction.’ Back-loaded instruction is one way that teachers can ensure the success of all of their students. Students need to be familiar with the content AND the context of the exam. This is especially true with at-risk students.

My definition of teaching to the test would include an over-reliance on practice worksheets. Assigning passage after passage isn’t teaching, it’s monitoring and inspecting. No product ever got better through inspection alone. If students clearly aren’t getting it, there’s no need for more inspection, it’s the process that needs to be adjusted. Drill and kill instruction is not child-centered, it’s mind-numbing.

By incorporating back-loaded instruction for at-risk students, teachers can help to level the playing field for those students. The first step in providing back-loaded instruction is to know the assessment, here in Texas, it’s the STAAR test. One needs to REALLY know the exam, not just be familiar with it. Educators need to take the assessments that the students take, analyze them, all of them. We should be so familiar with them that we don’t even need an answer key.

Individual test items should be deconstructed. We want to know exactly what is being asked of the students. What vocabulary is required? What skills do the test-takers need to complete the item? What prior knowledge is needed? In addition, we need to understand the distractors and how they are used.

Armed with valuable testing information, educators now have the ability to develop test items for their students. These teacher-created items can be directly linked to the content being studied in the classroom. Doing so makes the learning authentic, and it will help students to transfer their learning and apply it to testing situations. The more that a teacher can routinely integrate aligned practice items, the less surprises there will be for their students on testing day. This is the essence of aligned instruction.

Aligning instruction is good teaching. It helps to prepare students to handle challenging assessments and to not be blindsided by them. Aligning instruction is not ‘teaching to the test,’ it is equitable, quality teaching.

Thanksgiving 2012--Thank You Teachers!

First, thank you for the education that you provide to the citizens of our society. Thank you for the lives that you touch. Thank you for the dreams that you inspire. Thank you for your encouragement that helps others to stay the course. Thank you for making a difference in this world. Thanks for the memories you are creating in your classrooms!

Hield Yield Strategy Tip #1

Nonlinguistic Representations
According to Robert Marzano, knowledge is stored in the brain in two forms--a linguistic form and an imagery form. The imagery form of knowledge is referred to as nonlinguistic representation. The more that we use both forms, the better we are able to think about and recall information. A picture may indeed be worth a thousand words!

Whenever possible, have students create graphic organizers to generate nonlinguistic representations of knowledge.

It's always better if the kids create them themselves. To help give them some ideas and practice, use the links below for some sample graphic organizers that you might consider using in your classrooms.

Over 30 graphic organizers in English & Spanish:
http://www.region15.org/curriculum/graphicorg.html

Eight pages of various graphic organizers from Fishbones to Flowers:
http://www.freeology.com/graphicorgs/index.php

20 story and character graphic organizers:
http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/GO/character_story.htm

Huge collection of character graphic organizers
http://www.region15.org/curriculum/CHARACTERIZATION-Portrait.pdf

Outstanding Picture Books to Teach Reading and Writing Strategies

In an effort to encourage more authentic reading in the classroom, I am offering up suggestions for the use of picture books for reading and writing instruction. Don’t think that a picture book written at a 3^rd grade level can’t be taught in a 5^th grade classroom. Using this material to introduce and/or reteach objectives gives students support, and I believe, some good, basic background knowledge for implementing reading strategies that they can draw upon when they are working with more difficult texts. These books offer a friendly chance for the students to “get their minds around” a difficult strategy like drawing conclusions or cause/effect.

My first recommendation is a fun book by Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss. It is their 3^rd in a series of “diary” books entitled Diary of a Fly. The story and diary centers on a lively little fly. Fly is an insect with a lot to learn. Flies must fly, so Fly's school teaches her how to... fly! Between school time and help from her friends, Worm and Spider, Fly learns all about her strengths, and how she fits into her world.

Even if you're bugged by flies, they have a place. This cute storybook teaches children ways that flies are remarkable and unique, but without a preachy, textbook-style tone. In her diary, Fly shares what she's learned in the form of silly happenings.

It’s a great book for introducing sequence, character traits, point-of-view, cause and effect, drawing conclusions, character changes and motivations. Additionally, it will serve as an excellent opportunity for science integration. I can see students writing papers like: the Diary of a Glacier, the Diary of a Volcano, or the Diary of a Water Drop. Thanks Myra for turning me on to this book!

Check out this bizarre yet irresistible Captain Underpants related video!

As promised, more videos on this site! Dav Pilkey on the kazoo!
Apparently Captain Underpants has a following in Japan. You can read the lyrics
here.

A Big Day!

Today was a big day for me! I had an opportunity to see author and writing guru Barry Lane present at the DFW Literacy Conference. When I got home this evening, I learned how to embed videos into this blog. So it seems only logical that I should embed a video of Barry Lane in today's posting! It is a hilarious parody of Folson Prison Blues that's called Gradebook Prison Blues. It's my first embedded video so if you would, let me know if you have any problems viewing it! If it works correctly, look for more videos on my blog.

Quotation to Live By

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.”

Charles Swindoll

High Yield Strategy Tip #2

Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition
Kids don’t necessarily come to your classroom understanding a simple concept that most adults accept as fact; the concept that effort contributes to success. According to Robert Marzano, not all students realize the relationship between effort and achievement. He adds that students’ attitudes toward effort can be changed through teacher instruction.

Whenever possible, talk with your students about the benefits of effort, or “trying hard.” Make visible to them the connection between effort and reward. Seek out and share examples of people whose effort lead to some great outcome.
You can search for books in your school library by using the subject search using the word “perseverance.” Also, here’s a list of books found in several libraries in our district that reinforce the importance of effort:

Luke Goes to Bat by Rachel Isadora
Run for It by Robert Hirschfeld
In the Small, Small Night by Jane Kurtz
D.W. Flips! by Marc Brown
Being Teddy Roosevelt by Claudia Mills
Bartlett and the Forest of Plenty by Odo Hirsch
Clorinda Takes Flight by Robert Kinerk

Vygotsky & Video Games

Video game developers are masters of teaching, coaching and learning. We as educators know well that young people are not always eager to do difficult things. When adults are faced with the challenge of getting them to do so, two choices are often available. We can force them, or we can dumb down the product, two options that are exercised too often in education today. Neither option is open to the video game industry. They can’t force people to play and most avid gamers don’t want their games short or easy.

For people interested in learning, this raises an interesting question. How do good game designers manage to get new players to learn their long, complex, and difficult games and not only
learn them but pay to do so? It not enough to say games are ‘motivating’. It seems that there is something about how games are designed to encourage learning that makes them so motivating. The answer, according to researchers Bereiter and Scarmolia, is this: the designers of many good games have hit on excellent methods of getting people to learn and to enjoy learning. They have had to, since games that are difficult to learn don’t get played and the companies that make them lose money.

Those above mentioned researchers have found that that there are at least four features of video games that educators would be wise to incorporate into their curricula:

Video games empower their learners

Good learning requires that learners feel like active producers not just passive consumers. In a video game, players make things happen. They don’t just consume what the game designer has placed before them. Video games are interactive. The player does something and the game does something back that encourages the player to act again. In good games, players feel that their actions and decisions – and not just the designers’ actions and decisions – are co-creating the world they are in and the experiences they are having. What the player does matters and each player, based on his or her own decisions and actions, travels different path through the game world.

This empowerment promotes ownership, buy-in, and engaged participation. It is a key part of motivation. The curriculum should be shaped by the learner’s actions and reflect on the learner in meaningful ways.

Video games offer customized content

Different styles of learning work better for different people. People cannot be agents of their own learning if they cannot make decisions about how their learning will work. At the same time, they should be able (and encouraged) to try new styles. Good games achieve this goal in one (or both) of two ways. In some games, players are able to customize the game play to fit their learning and playing styles. In others, the game is designed to allow different styles of learning and playing to work. Classrooms adopting this principle would allow students to discover their favored learning styles and to try new ones without fear. In the act of customizing their own learning, students would learn a good deal about how and why they learn.

Good video games are ‘pleasantly frustrating’

Learning works best when new challenges are pleasantly frustrating in the sense of being felt by learners to be at the outer edge of, but within, what Vygotsky calls their ‘zone of proximal development . That is, these challenges feel hard, but ‘doable’. Furthermore, learners feel – and get evidence – that their effort is paying off in the sense that they can see, even when they fail, how and if they are making progress .

Good games adjust challenges and give feedback in such a way that different players feel the game is challenging but doable and that their effort is paying off. Players get feedback that indicates whether they are on the right road for success later on and at the end of the game. When players fail to complete a level, perhaps multiple times, they get feedback about the sort of progress they are making so that at least they know if and how they are moving in the right direction towards success.

School is often too easy for some kids and too hard for others even when they are in the same classroom. Motivation for humans lies in challenges that feel challenging, but doable and in gaining continual feedback that lets them know what progress they are making. Learners should be able to adjust the difficulty level while being encouraged to stay at the outer edge of their ZPD, but still within their level of competence. They should gain insight into where this level is and how it is changing over time. Good games don’t come in grade levels that players must be ‘at’. They realize that it doesn’t matter when the player finishes or how he or she did in comparison to others – all that matters is that the player learns to play the game and comes to master it. Players who take longer and struggle longer at the beginning are sometimes the ones who, in the end, master the game most easily.

Videos games expose their players to ‘cycles of expertise’

In their work, Surpassing Ourselves: an inquiry into the nature and implications of expertise, Bereiter and Scardemolia tell us that whether it be learning a second language, playing tennis, or learning to read, expertise is formed in an area by repeated cycles of learners practicing skills until they are nearly automatic, then having those skills fail in ways that cause the learners to have to think again and learn anew. Then they practice this new skill set to an automatic level of mastery only to see it eventually be challenged again. In fact, this is the whole point of levels and bosses. Each level exposes the players to new challenges and allows them to get good at solving them. They are then confronted with a newer level that makes them use these skills together with new ones they have to learn, and integrate with the old ones, to beat the boss. Then they move on to a new level and the process starts again.

When we think of games, we think of fun. When we think of learning we think of work. Games show us this is wrong. They trigger deep learning that is itself part of the fun. It is what makes good games deep. There are no ‘special’ learners when it comes to video games. Even an old guy like me can wander the plains of Morrowind long enough to pick up the ropes and master the game. The world doesn’t go away, I can enter any time, it gives me constant feedback, but never a final judgment that I am a failure, and the final exam – the final level – is willing to wait until I am good enough to beat it and master the game.

What Do Captain Underpants and Huckleberry Finn Have in Common?

One fellow is a chubby superhero that flies around in his red cape and white underwear and the other is a rebellious lad from the 19^th century who embarks on a great American adventure. They are both controversial characters, even banned.

I must admit that I was a bit surprised when I read TexMex’s comment on my previous post, Teachable Moment or Missed Opportunity: The Return of Huck Finn and found that Captain Underpants also has a history as a banned piece of literature. Looking at it from a different perspective, I can recognize the subversive elements found in Capt. Underpants. I see that some of the exploits of the characters in Captain Underpants might encourage some of our mischievous-minded little friends to engage in similar deeds. One example, George and Harold changed the bathroom sign in their school, which read: PLEASE WASH YOU HANDS AFTER USING THE TOILET. After the two unripe protagonists altered the sign it read: PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS IN THE TOILET. I’m revealing both my position on the matter and my inner 8 year old when I state, that’s funny!

Judy Blume (frequently challenged for her kid's books) addresses the subject of censorship more effectively than I can on her personal website.

You can read more about the controversy from the CNN archives.

Also, pay a visit Dav Pilkey's fabulously fun website

When Egos Soar

If there is one thing in education that quietly and effectively hinders achievement and interrupts the smooth flow of information within individual schools, that one thing is ego. Overbearing egos stifle collective reflection and teamwork, limiting the meaningful exchange of ideas. This, in turn, limits problem-solving and the ability to generate and apply new ideas to the never-ending supply of new challenges that educators face daily. In short, dominating egos get in the way of learning organizations.

What does the term ego mean in relation to good educational practices? How should leadership deal with people who simply refuse to consider new ideas or allow others workers to shine?

First, management has to identify where areas of disagreements or non-performance are appearing. As a rule, by using simple observation and some careful prodding, management can soon discover that one or two individuals are dominating an entire section. This often occurs during brainstorming sessions or team assigned projects. The egotist will often obstruct the simplest ideas to garner attention, or ignore any ideas that don't fit in with his/her worldview.

The actions of egotists tend to stifle creativity by the use of subtle mockery or derision towards minds that don't necessarily fit their pre-conceived notions of linear thinking. Often egotists will reject people who are valuable assets to any school. The use of phrases such as "Yes but", “I suggest you'd better", “My Students can’t do this”, or "This isn't the way things are done here", are subtle ways of creating a negative and tense environment.

Once you've identified the issue and the person(s) causing them, what needs to be done? I don't support throwing people away, so I would try a frank, one-on-one discussion. The use of honest feedback from others, offered in a non-confrontational manner will in some cases, fix the problem. Not allowing the obstructive personality to participate in group or team projects, but utilizing them in less interactive tasks is another idea. If they have valued skills (and often they do), any of the above are worth trying.

Perhaps the best approach to this is not to hire this type of personality at all. Though I don't know much about conducting an employment interview, I do know that there are techniques that can be utilized in the interviewing process to uncover the traits that signal a controlling egotist. Also, if the principal makes it crystal clear that his/her school or organization is team-centric, then that makes the interviewers job much easier.

Most importantly, leadership must lead by example and be team players themselves. If leadership is open, transparent and highly motivated to seek input from others, the teams will quickly discover that ego has little place in his organization. Generally, strong, open leadership is usually surrounded by a very strong and committed team that shares the successes and the failures equally as part of the growth of their school.