Planning for Instruction . . . On a Short Timeline

Okay, so as of last week--the new semester--I have five new classes of kids, four of which are Intensive Reading. There are three levels of reading classes here in Florida: A (the lowest performing), B (those in the middle range), and C (those who are close to passing the FCAT). All three levels are really complicated because the students in them fluctuate in scores from year to year--no big surprise there. That said, I have new kids--the Cs--and my job is to get them ready for FCAT retakes, which are in three months from now. No pressure there! The FCAT is a mandated hurdle that all kids must pass; I hate it, and I think it's complete BS. However, it is what it is. I want my students to pass and LOVE to read and THINK CRITICALLY and become INFORMED YOUNG ADULTS. First things first--how to plan instruction to maximize time and help students the most.

I downloaded all their FCAT overall scores and sub-scores and created excel files for each class mainly looking at the last two test administrations. With this data, I hope to be able to both differentiate instruction and create small groups to focus on the individual literacy practices that students need the most help with. Mind you, I also have to use two "texts"/"programs" that our district spent a bajillion dollars on. Neither one is aligned with (a) what the FCAT tests or (b) what I would do based on my PhD and ten years in higher ed. Like all things (I am thinking about AR), "programs" are often erroneously equated with teaching. Moreover, neither one promotes critical thinking. So, critical literacy/critical thinking is what I will have to come up with and USE in between the "mandated" texts I have been given (oh, and I only have 5 copies of one required text and I have 25 students! HA, the irony)

Even More on DOK Misinformation

I am reposting this from Dr. Walkup's blog: Karin Hess, probably the most prolific national trainer on Depth of Knowledge, has agreed to share her thoughts on the matter: I'm glad you said that you see this as problematic - I do as well. I call this the "DOK wheel of misfortune" and tell people in my workshops to discard it. It flies in the face of what DOK is about: What comes AFTER the verb. I usually point out that, for example, comparing two story characters (DOK 2) does not show as deep understanding as comparing (analyzing across texts) themes from two different stories (DOK 4). Secondly, verbs alone are "generic" to content and again research tells us that analyzing in science, for example, does not require the same mental schemas as analyzing literature or mathematics. The DOK wheel is easy (efficient?) to use, but ineffective in terms of delving deep into content and processes. Feel free to use it and to quote me on how useless the wheel is. http://granted-solutions.blogspot.com/2014/01/karin-hess-weighs-in-on-bad-depth-of.html

Good Intentions Gone Awry

The more I am back the K-12 school system the more I see good intentions gone awry and good information misinterpreted and misrepresented. Most of it relates to the Common Core, which was led by two non-teachers (don't even get me started on those two folks). As I was preparing to work on my first set of lesson plans for the new semester I found myself "missing" my DOK chart. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with it--in my 10 years as a teacher educator I had NEVER come across such a thing--it is a chart (really it is a wheel) with 4 levels of knowledge and tasks (verbs) associated with them. It is similar to Bloom's Taxonomy. Anyway, we have to use the top two levels of this chart to write objectives and guiding questions for all daily lessons. Since I had misplaced mine I of course went to the Internet to find another. Imagine my surprise when I came across a blog that showed that Webb did not create this wheel and, even worse, he has "explicitly stated that he considers the wheel chart misleading and has always discouraged its use."

According to David Walkup, who talked to Webb, "The problem with the DOK wheel chart rests on the fundamental, but completely false, premise that teachers can simply select certain action verbs to raise and lower the DOK level of their instruction." A link to Walkup's blog is below. http://granted-solutions.blogspot.com/2013/12/bad-dok-chart-sabotages-understanding.html