Welcome Back
Hope all of you had a calm and peaceful holiday season. 2008 is going to be an important year for instructional leaders to focus on instruction, planning and professional development. We look forward to sharing information with you and encourage you to share with the network the 21st Century instructional practices and strategies that are improving student achievement in your district. We encourage you to forward any information in the newsletter to all instructional leaders in your district and schools.
ISN Meeting Documents
Documents and PowerPoint presentations from the ISN Fall Meeting are now available on the KDE Web site.
Dimensions of Understanding
Teachers and administrators must focus on assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning. In the same vein, teachers and administrators much teach for understanding.
Teaching for understanding includes four dimensions that must be addressed in developing standards-based units of study: purposes, knowledge, methods and forms. Dimensions of understanding help educators think systematically about understanding disciplinary topics. These dimensions can help guide planning by balancing what students should learn to include more than just knowledge and recall and to vary instructional techniques and assessments/evaluations methods. All four dimensions can be applied within various units to design a well-rounded curriculum. Understanding happens when all four dimensions are taught and assessed.
Teachers must answer the following questions as they design standards-based units of study and create ongoing assessments:
- PURPOSE – why will students think the topic/content is useful?
- KNOWLEDGE – what is important to know; key facts/concepts?
- METHODS – how will students inquire & build knowledge
- FORMS – how will students share findings?
Purpose is the "why" of understanding. It answers the students’ question "Why do we have to do this?"
Knowledge is the "what" we want students to understand.
Methods are the "how" of understanding. Methods, generally, are verbs.
Forms are the "expressions" of understanding: the evidence, the works or the products. Forms result from methods – so if methods are verbs, forms are nouns. Like "recording data" is a method (verb), but the "record sheets" and "lab notebooks" that hold that recorded data are the forms (nouns).
Over the next few weeks, the ISN newsletter will be looking into Unpacking the Standards.
Adolescent Literacy Summit
The Collaborative Center for Literacy Development (CCLD) and the University of Kentucky are hosting an Adolescent Literacy Summit on January 16 as a professional development opportunity. CCLD supports state teacher quality initiatives as a strategic approach aimed at enhancing student proficiency. Equipping Kentucky teachers with a greater knowledge base in literacy strategies across the content areas is one goal. This professional development also will emphasize the importance of providing reading intervention for adolescent learners.
Registration is available at www.kentuckyliteracy.org. The summit agenda is available on the KDE Web site.
ACT Workshop
Six regional ACT Workshops are planned for January. These full-day sessions will provide an instructional leadership opportunity for district representatives to learn how to interpret and use EXPLORE and PLAN results to prepare students for the ACT and to prepare for using data from the March ACT administration. The program also will address curriculum and instruction issues relevant to these assessments.
For more information, contact Ruth Humphrey.
Rocks and Minerals in Modern Society
2008 Summer Teachers’ Workshop
Kentucky Geological Survey and CINSAM at NKU are sponsoring a hands-on workshop for elementary and middle school teachers at Georgetown College on June 25-26. Participants will spend one-and-a-half days in central Kentucky experiencing interactive classroom activities, visiting actual stone quarries and receiving classroom materials and notebooks, handouts and samples to enhance instruction and engage students. Educators will learn about the aggregate industry, including crushed stone, sand and gravel and how these natural resources are so vital to our state and its economy.
For more information, contact Ron Gray at KCSA or Dale Elifrits, Ph.D. at NKU.
Quotable Quotes
“There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.”
Roger Staubach, former professional football player and Heisman Trophy winner