In This Issue:

  1. Why is it so difficult to improve the teacher-evaluation process?

  2. Another look at the Measures of Effective Teaching study

  3. Conditions for the continuous improvement of teaching

  4. Counteracting summer reading loss

  5. Using Reading Recovery techniques in guided reading groups

  6. Keeping our technology use under control

  7. Advice for leaders

  8. The qualities of an effective high-school athletic coach

  9. Consistency with classroom discipline

10. Are speed reading courses effective?

11. Short items: (a) World population growth animated; (b) Two centuries of U.S. immigration animated; (c) Common Core math sequence; (d) Survey on teacher evaluation

 

Quotes of the Week

“I don’t know about you, but I’m really bad at being self-disciplined about things I don’t care about.”

            David Brooks in “Putting Grit In Its Place” in The New York Times, May 10, 2016,

            http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/opinion/putting-grit-in-its-place.html?_r=0

 

“For students, especially the children of immigrants or those who are English-language learners, a teacher who knows their name and can pronounce it correctly signals respect and marks a critical step in helping them adjust to school.”

            Corey Mitchell in “Bungling Student Names: A Slight That Stings” in Education Week,

May 11, 2016 (Vol. 35, #30, p. 1, 10-11), www.edweek.org

 

“There’s no daily quota on thank you’s.”

            Kevin Gannon (see item #7)

 

“In all the high-performing schools and districts I’ve been in, the most powerful lever of improvement rests on the ability of one teacher to say to another, ‘My kids aren’t doing as well as yours. What are you doing?’”

            Karin Chenoweth in “ESSA Offers Changes That Can Continue Learning Gains” in Phi

Delta Kappan, May 2016 (Vol. 97, #8, p. 38-42), www.kappanmagazine.org;

Chenoweth can be reached at [email protected].

 

“Who is doing the work?”

            A mantra among Reading Recovery teachers (quoted in item #5)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Why Is It So Difficult to Improve the Teacher-Evaluation Process?

            In this Brown University working paper, Matthew Kraft (Brown University) and Allison Gilmour (Vanderbilt University) revisit The New Teacher Project’s widely read “Widget Effect” study. In 2009, TNTP reported that teacher evaluation systems didn’t accurately distinguish among teachers with varying levels of proficiency, failed to identify most of the teachers with serious performance problems, and were unhelpful in guiding professional development. Less than one percent of teachers were rated unsatisfactory, despite the fact that 81 percent of administrators and 57 percent of teachers could name a teacher in their school who was ineffective. The Widget Effect study concluded that “school districts must begin to distinguish great from good, good from fair, and fair from poor.”

            Kraft and Gilmour asked whether this situation has changed, given that in recent years almost every state has adopted reforms designed to improve teacher evaluation. Here’s what they found looking at data from 19 states and from an intensive analysis of one urban district:

-   On average, only 2.7 percent of teachers were rated below Proficient/Exemplary on a 4- or 5-point scale.

-   The range went from 1 percent below Proficient in Hawaii to 26.2 percent below Proficient in New Mexico.

-   On average, principals estimated that 27.8 percent of teachers in their schools were performing below Proficient.

-   Only New Mexico had ratings that were close to administrators’ perceived distribution of performance, and the state’s system was facing a series of legal challenges.

-   The percent of teachers given the top rating ranged from 73 percent in Tennessee to 8 percent in Massachusetts and 3 percent in Georgia.

-   Many districts are drawing important distinctions between good and excellent teaching, but there is less differentiation among good, fair, and poor performance.

In short, although some states report greater differences in teacher ratings than others, the general picture is that there has been little change from the 2009 TNTP findings.

            Why do so few teachers receive below-proficient ratings, despite the fact that school administrators estimate that more than a quarter of their teachers aren’t up to par? From interviews with principals, Kraft and Gilmour identified the following factors:

            • The daunting workload involved in giving low ratings – This includes the observational evidence needed to justify an unsatisfactory or marginal rating, the required corrective action plan, and the extensive support often needed to help an underperforming teacher improve – not to mention the legal wrangles involved in dismissing an ineffective teacher if it comes to that. Principals with a number of underperforming teachers often took a triage approach, focusing on only one or two.

            • Being merciful – Some principals said they were hesitant to give low ratings to rookie teachers out of kindness and a desire not to discourage (or lose) a teacher who had potential for growth. “Assigning a Proficient rating was seen as a way to recognize teachers’ efforts to improve,” say Kraft and Gilmour. To cushion the blow, some principals addressed their concerns outside the formal evaluation process – an informal “word to the wise.” Principals saw this as furthering the greater good of improving their teacher workforce. In addition, say Kraft and Gilmour, “Assigning low ratings can undercut relational trust that is essential for mobilizing collective effort.”

            • Personal discomfort – “For some teachers, a low rating may motivate them to invest in their own professional growth or pressure them to work harder,” say Kraft and Gilmour. “For others, it may raise their defenses, causing them to be less receptive to feedback on how to improve.” One principal said, “The most difficult part of the job is probably to deliver those difficult messages, and not everyone is capable of that. That’s where administrators actually fall down is when they’re unable to deliver those types of messages.” Principals knew that teachers could lose their jobs as a result of a low rating, and were upset when teachers cried. A principal said, “The last thing I think I wanna do as a human being is to watch another human being walk out with their head down, dejected, because they just lost their job because they couldn’t do it. This is something they wanted to do. That’s a little bit harsh, you know?”

            • Other reasons – These included racial concerns (for example, if a disproportionate number of minority teachers might receive low ratings); burdensome dismissal procedures; principals making deals in which teachers agreed to leave the school in exchange for a higher rating; and concern about ineffective replacement teachers. A principal had this justification for rehiring a problematic teacher: “He’s a problem, but he’s my problem, and he’s one that I can really work with. Relative to the problems that were ringing my doorbell, I thought, ‘I haven’t begun to see how low it can go.’”

            Kraft and Gilmour conclude that the continued failure of most teacher-evaluation systems to accurately report differences in teacher performance “is a product of conscious choices by evaluators as they navigate implementation challenges, competing interests, unintended consequences, and perverse incentives… [P]olicies are ultimately made by the ‘street-level bureaucrats’ who implement them rather than the policymakers who design them.”

 

“Revisiting the Widget Effect: Teacher Evaluation Reforms and the Distribution of Teacher Effectiveness” by Matthew Kraft and Allison Gilmour, Brown University Working Paper, February 2016, http://bit.ly/1NvJVhF; Kraft can be reached at [email protected].

Back to page one

 

2. Another Look at the Measures of Effective Teaching Study

(Originally titled “Evaluating and Improving: Not the Same Thing”)

            In this Education Leadership column, Bryan Goodwin and Heather Hein (McREL) reexamine the 2013 Gates-funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study, which asserted that it’s possible to accurately evaluate teachers by triangulating data from student surveys, value-added scores, and classroom observations. Goodwin and Hein note two previous concerns about the study and add one of their own:

-   It’s circular to use value-added measures  to validate surveys and observations.

-   If, as MET said, classroom observations are weakly correlated with student achievement, is it worth it to use multiple visits by multiple experts or expertly trained observers?

-   Even if improved evaluations can measure teacher performance, can they improve it?

Ironically, around the time of the MET study, Microsoft, Google, General Electric, and other corporations shifted from rating and ranking employees to providing real-time supervisor and peer feedback and coaching aimed at fostering professional growth to meet stretch goals. This rethinking was inspired by three findings from educational research:

-   Performance ratings tend to foster a “fixed” versus a “growth” mindset.

-   Numerical grades or ratings lead recipients to ignore detailed feedback.

-   Extrinsic rewards can discourage the behaviors they aim to improve.

A 2012 initiative in Cincinnati suggests a different approach. Mid-career teachers who were observed four times by peers and given detailed feedback showed marked improvements in performance and student results. The key elements were frequency, credible observers, formative feedback, and a simple, low-stakes process with no direct ties to promotion and retention decisions.

 

“Evaluating and Improving: Not the Same Thing” by Bryan Goodwin and Heather Hein in Educational Leadership, May 2016 (Vol. 73, #8, p. 83-84), available for purchase at

http://bit.ly/1Yvdrob; Goodwin can be reached at [email protected].

Back to page one

 

3. Conditions for the Continuous Improvement of Teaching

(Originally titled “The Myth of the Performance Plateau”)

            In this article in Educational Leadership, John Papay and Matthew Kraft (Brown University) challenge the widespread assumption that teachers stop growing professionally after the first few years in the classroom. It’s certainly true that there is a steep learning curve as teachers start working with students, but Papay and Kraft cite research showing that improvement can continue – if teachers have the right professional working conditions. “These findings challenge the common characterization of ‘teacher quality’ as a fixed characteristic of an individual teacher,” they say. “We believe policymakers need to change this fixed characterization so we can focus our efforts on learning how teachers improve over time and what role the school plays in supporting improvement.” Studies point to the following levers for continuous improvement:

            • Peer collaboration – Veteran teachers continue to improve their skills if structures are in place that get them working with colleagues in focused, results-oriented instructional teams.

            • Teacher evaluation – The key is detailed, valid feedback on classroom practices and support for improvement from knowledgeable and well-trained administrators or peers.

            • Tailored on-the-job training – Most PD is ineffective, but intensive coaching focused on the specific needs of individual teachers and sustained over time can make a positive difference.

            • Organizational supports – These include an orderly, disciplined school environment, services available to address students’ social and emotional needs, and positive parent engagement.

• Leadership – “Hiring principals who have the talent to identify organizational weaknesses, establish schoolwide systems to support teachers and students, and galvanize collective buy-in from teachers is a central lever for improving the teaching and learning environment,” conclude Papay and Kraft.

 

“The Myth of the Performance Plateau” by John Papay and Matthew Kraft in Educational Leadership, May 2016 (Vol. 73, #8, p. 36-41), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1OvElXq; the authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

Back to page one

 

4. Counteracting Summer Reading Loss

            “Poor children lose ground over the summer; more-advantaged children do not,” say Anne McGill-Franzen and Natalia Ward (University of Tennessee/Knoxville) and Maria Cahill (University of Kentucky/Lexington) in this article in The Reading Teacher. Not having access to books in June, July, and August results in a two-month loss each summer for poor children compared to a one-month gain for more-advantaged children, and that accumulates over the years into a crushing achievement gap. Getting low-SES children reading over the summer is the most effective way to change that dynamic, but what works? Research suggests that the key ingredients include:

-   Students choosing their own books based on their interests; this is especially important for early readers; matching books to students’ Lexile or Fountas/Pinnell reading levels is less important than interest;

-   Students getting 10-12 books for the summer;

-   Students owning the books (versus borrowing them); research across 27 countries found that a home library is as important as parental education and twice as important as the father’s occupation in predicting educational outcomes;

-   Students getting series books with familiar language and literacy elements;

-   Students selecting slightly more challenging books each summer;

-   Students getting e-book or audio formats that provide access to more-challenging material;

-   Guidance to parents on reading and interacting with their children (but not making it too much like school);

-   Guidance to teachers on integrating books with other literacy activities;

-   Teachers and parents framing summer reading as fun rather than work, with the goal being enjoyment and exploration rather than remediation and achievement gains.

Studies show that students who benefit most from free-distribution programs for summer reading are the poorest students. “If educators must make hard choices about how to allocate resources for summer reading, they must give books to the neediest students!” say McGill-Franzen, Ward, and Cahill.

 

“Summers: Some Are Reading, Some Are Not! It Matters” by Anne McGill-Franzen, Natalia Ward, and Maria Cahill in The Reading Teacher, May/June 2016 (Vol. 69, #6, p. 585-596), available for purchase at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1461/abstract; the authors can be reached at [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Back to page one

 

5. Using Reading Recovery Techniques in Guided Reading Groups

            In this article in The Reading Teacher, Sara Helfrich (Ohio University/Athens) and Jamie Lipp (a former Reading Recovery teacher and currently a curriculum specialist and doctoral candidate) suggest several practices used in one-on-one Reading Recovery lessons that can be effective in guided reading sessions in the regular classroom:

Focusing on fluency:

• Familiar reading – Have students warm up by whisper-reading a book at their independent or instructional level that they’ve read at least once, and monitor them for fluency.

• Anchor text – Each student should have a very familiar book that he or she can read fluently, and use it to practice reading smoothly and with expression.

• Modeling fluent reading – When students are reading in a choppy, staccato fashion, the teacher should read with them, showing what fluent reading sounds like. Prompts include: Are you listening to yourself? Put them all together so that it sounds like talking. Reread. Did it sound smooth?

• Weaning from finger pointing – “Emergent readers often use finger pointing long after it is needed,” say Lipp and Helfrich. “Once early behaviors such as one-to-one matching, return sweep, and locating known words are firmly established, it is important to ask students to read with their eyes only.” Pointing should be used only when necessary.

Providing a supportive book introduction:

            • Contagious excitement – Psych students up for each new book, introducing it in ways that connect with their interests and make them feel it will be fun to read on their own.

            • Covering all the bases – “We must make students familiar with the story, the plot, unfamiliar phrases, unusual names, new words, and old words used in an unusual way,” say Lipp and Helfrich. “Reading Recovery teachers often ask questions that allow students to think beyond the text, making predictions, and creating suspense by not revealing up front the ending of the text.”

Prompting as students read the book individually:

            • Goldilocks challenge level – New books introduced in guided reading should be at the edge of students’ instructional level, not too hard but not easy.

            • Minimal teacher talk – “Reading Recovery teachers are trained to know how to say enough without saying too much,” say Lipp and Helfrich. “Too much teacher talk can impede learning.” Brief, gentle interventions might include: Do this. What did you notice? Why did you stop? Think about what you know that might help.

            • The right prompts – “We must remain flexible with our prompting to ensure we are creating readers who skillfully integrate meaning, structure, and visual information to interpret texts,” say Lipp and Helfrich.

Observing and analyzing carefully:

            • Listening closely – “To prevent reading failure teachers must take time to observe what children are able to do,” said Marie Clay, the creator of Reading Recovery. This includes listening, chatting with children about a story, and using running records.

            • How does the reading sound? Are students putting words and phrases together so the reading flows? Are they spending too much time on word solving? When they slow down to figure out a difficult word, do they speed right up again?

            • Using strengths – “Building off readers’ strengths is a foundation piece of the Reading Recovery lesson,” say Lipp and Helfrich. Watch for things they are doing better and use those to support further learning.

            • Noting struggles – Are they making haphazard attempts at high-frequency words? Do they need more practice?

            • Interpreting a “told” word – When a student is stuck and the teacher has to tell a word, what caused the problem? Those words or patterns may need to be practiced.

            • Who is doing the work? “[T]he hardest shift for teachers to make is to think about teaching as assisting the student’s problem solving,” said Lyons, Pinnell, and DeFord. “Reading Recovery teachers are taught to balance strategic teaching with high expectations of accountability for students,” say Lipp and Helfrich. “Reading, to most students, can appear like a puzzle in need of careful solving. Helping students to understand and gain control of the skills and strategies to do their own puzzle solving will decrease their dependence on you as the teacher for constant support… Make sure that you are not jumping in right away to rescue students each time they pause or falter.” When students are right, ask them, Were you right? When they’re wrong, ask, How do you know?

 

“Key Reading Recovery Strategies to Support Classroom Guided Reading Instruction” by Jamie Lipp and Sara Helfrich in The Reading Teacher, May/June 2016 (Vol. 69, #6, p. 639-646), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/257sags; the authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

Back to page one

 

6. Keeping Our Technology Use Under Control

(Originally titled “Five Tips for Avoiding Technology Overload”)

            In this Educational Leadership article, California high-school English teacher Catlin Tucker suggests ways to maintain work-life balance in the age of constant connectivity.

            • Establish virtual office hours. Tucker tells students at the beginning of the year the dates and times when she’ll be available for a Google chat or Google Hangouts screen-sharing session. She has colleagues who tell students they can e-mail between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. and any e-mails received after that will be answered the next day.

            • Limit communication channels. E-mail? Texting? A class blog? Twitter? “With so many options, it can be overwhelming and exhausting to maintain multiple channels of communication,” says Tucker. Her policy: use e-mail for non-urgent questions and texts when time is an issue.

            • Make information available online. Tucker’s class website has pages for agenda and homework, web tools and online resources, writing videos, vocabulary videos, grammar videos, and mastery-based grading explained.

            • Set up a space where students can connect online. Tucker has a private Google+ community where students can share information, ask questions, and support one another. She encourages students to check with a peer before contacting her. “I don’t want my students to ask me the minute they have a question,” she says. “I want them to learn how to be learners and to turn to their peers as a valuable resource.”

            • Protect unplugged time at home. Tucker has two small children and doesn’t want them to feel they’re competing with her devices for her attention. So she totally unplugs – no social media, no e-mail, no texts – from the time she gets home until her children are in bed. “It’s a relief to take a break from technology,” she says.

 

“Five Tips for Avoiding Technology Overload” by Catlin Tucker in Educational Leadership, May 2016 (Vol. 73, #8, p. 89-90), http://bit.ly/1ThInsa

Back to page one

 

7. Advice for Leaders

            In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Kevin Gannon (Grand View University) reflects on what he’s learned taking on administrative roles. Almost all of it applies to K-12:

            • Not every disagreement is a call to arms. With expanded responsibilities, Gannon sees the bigger picture and is less likely to get caught up in parochial battles that aren’t helpful to the broader institutional purpose.

            • How and when I use my voice matters. “As I see it,” says Gannon, “my job requires that I advocate for both faculty members and students, and for both teaching and learning. Sometimes that means speaking truth to power; other times it means speaking truth to colleagues.” This is especially important with issues of gender, race, and bullying.

            • Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Gannon knew that he lacked training and experience with budgeting and project management and successfully overcame the instinct to “fake it until you make it.”

            • Be good to people (including yourself). “It’s difficult to balance the central mission of the institution – teaching and learning – with all the things that happen on a daily basis ostensibly aimed at fulfilling that mission,” says Gannon. “It’s all too easy to let the minutiae detract from the larger goal… I’m not useful to anyone I serve if I’m overcommitted.” He’s realized that “leadership is more than talking loudly in every forum. Support, affirmation, and collegiality are more important. For me, leadership has become a matter of knowing and respecting my colleagues all over the campus, appreciating the work they do, and letting them know it… There’s no daily quota on thank you’s.”

 

“4 Lessons for Aspiring Administrators” by Kevin Gannon in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 13, 2016 (Vol. LXII, #35, p. A32), http://bit.ly/1XeyFbn

Back to page one

 

8. The Qualities of an Effective High-School Athletic Coach

            In this Kappan article, Daniel Gould (Michigan State University) says that high-school sports are a double-edged sword. At their best, they promote academic achievement, stronger student connections to education, and improved initiative, teamwork, and social skills. Handled poorly, sports can contribute to student stress, burnout, lost motivation, increased alcohol use, negative peer interactions, and risky choices. The key factor, says Gould, is a coach who:

            • Has a well-thought-out coaching philosophy aligned with the school’s educational, athletic, and programmatic goals – Winning isn’t the main goal, says Gould. Rather, “coaches work hard to help student-athletes learn important life lessons from their sport experiences.”

            • Shares decision-making with students and provides rationales for coaching actions – The old military drill-sergeant model is ineffective, says Gould; effective coaches meet their athletes’ need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in an atmosphere where students feel they belong.

            • Builds strong coach-athlete relationships in a caring, supportive climate – Each athlete is known as an individual, made to feel welcome, and knows that bullying and belittling others isn’t tolerated on or off the field.

            • Is a knowledgeable and effective teacher – “Research reveals that coaches who give positive versus degrading and punitive feedback or no feedback at all have athletes who are more motivated, feel better about themselves, and achieve more positive developmental outcomes from sports participation,” says Gould.

            • Is intentional in fostering positive youth development – This includes attention to leadership, teamwork, and a work ethic.

 

“Quality Coaching Counts” by Daniel Gould in Phi Delta Kappan, May 2016 (Vol. 97, #8, p. 13-18), www.kappanmagazine.org; Gould can be reached at [email protected].

Back to page one

 

9. Consistency with Classroom Discipline

            In this article on his website, classroom management guru Fred Jones recalls that his mother, a former elementary school teacher, meant business with her children. Jones remembers that as a kid, he could wheedle with the best of them. “My mom referred to any such arguing or wheedling as ‘yammering,’” he says. “Early in life, I learned two ironclad rules from my mom: Rule #1: No means no. Rule #2: I am not going to stand here and listen to your yammering.”

            Years later, Jones was a psychologist working with parents who were at their wits’ end over their children’s “brat” behavior – the kids would whine and fuss and tantrum until they got their way. “But, Dr. Jones,” these parents would say, “I think we are being pretty consistent.” or “I think we are consistent most of the time.” What these parents didn’t understand, says Jones, is that “You are either consistent, or you are inconsistent. There is nothing in between.”

If his own mother had been pretty consistent, say four out of five times, her children would have learned some important lessons: When the going gets tough, the tough get yammering. If at first you don’t succeed, yammer, yammer again. Never give up! Today might be your lucky day. “The irony of consistency,” says Jones, “is that the closer you come to being consistent before you fail, the worse off you are. If the parent cracks easily, the child does not need to be a world-class yammerer in order to succeed. But, if the parent does not crack easily, the child must learn to play hardball.”

            How does this apply to classrooms? Teachers must set clear, reasonable expectations, says Jones, and then be absolutely consistent in enforcing them. Here’s a classic dilemma: Students are working silently on a project and the teacher is helping Robert, who is having difficulty. “You have been working with Robert for a couple of minutes,” he says, “and you are nearing closure. Given another twenty seconds, Robert will be able to progress on his own. At this moment out of the corner of your eye you catch two students on the far side of the room talking instead of working. It is not a big disruption. It isn’t even bothering other students nearby.” What should the teacher do?

Most teachers really want to finish helping Robert. But from the students’ perspective, here’s what the teacher who ignores the misbehavior might as well announce: “Class, do you remember what I said at the beginning of the school year about high standards and time-on-task? Well, as you know, talk is cheap. What you just saw was reality. As you may have noticed, when I have to choose between discipline and instruction, I will choose instruction. I find discipline management to be… oh, how can I say this… inconvenient. Consequently when I am busy with instruction, I will turn a blind eye to goofing off as long as it is not too bothersome. I would like for there to be no discipline problems, of course. But, as you can see, dealing with them is simply not worth my time. In spite of this, let me express my sincere hope that we will have an orderly and productive school year together.”

In other words, says Jones, if you fail to enforce your rules, they are nothing but hot air. Of course the quality of the rules is important, which leads to another Fred Jones maxim:

Never make a rule that you are not willing to enforce every time.

Back to consistency, two more maxims:

If you are consistent, you can use smaller and smaller consequences to govern misbehavior.

But if you are inconsistent, you must use larger and larger consequences to govern misbehavior.

 

“The Importance of Consistency” by Fred Jones, May 10, 2016, http://bit.ly/1TFjjHt

Back to page one

10. Are Speed-Reading Courses Effective?

            In this New York Times article, Jeffrey Zacks and Rebecca Treiman (Washington University/St. Louis) say that Woody Allen’s line about taking a speed-reading course (“I read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia.”) captures an important truth. The research, say Zacks and Treiman, says “it’s extremely unlikely you can greatly improve your reading speed without missing out on a lot of meaning… There is only a small area of the retina (called the fovea) for which our visual acuity is very high. Our eyes are seriously limited in their precision outside of that. This means that we can take in only a word or so at each glance, as well as a little bit about the words on either side.”

            There’s another bottleneck that limits how fast we can read: strings of words have to be assembled into meaning. “Reading is about language comprehension, not visual ability,” say Zacks and Treiman. “If you want to improve your reading speed, your best bet – as old-fashioned as it sounds – is to read a wide variety of written material and expand your vocabulary.”

Speed-reading courses and apps take two approaches. One is learning to make fewer back-and-forth eye movements across the page, or having a digital device present a stream of single words at a rapid rate. Zacks and Treiman say these simply don’t work – you can’t take in words you don’t see, and you have a set-point for processing language that can be changed only by long-term improvements in vocabulary and knowledge.

The second approach is skimming, and there are learnable skills that allow a person to search rapidly for a specific word or pick up the gist of a passage. The most successful approach is focusing on the lead sentences of chapters and paragraphs as well as headings, bold-faced words, and graphics. But when it comes to reading for deep comprehension or enjoyment, there are no shortcuts.

 

“Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read” by Jeffrey Zacks and Rebecca Treiman in The New York Times, April 17, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opinion/sunday/sorry-you-cant-speed-read.html

Back to page one

 

11. Short Items:

a. World population growth animated – This six-minute video shows where and how

 human population growth happened from the beginning of history: http://wapo.st/1Tfp1QZ

 

“Watch the World Population Grow in Under 6 Minutes” from WorldPopulationHistory.org in The Washington Post, February 1, 2016

Back to page one

 

            b. Two centuries of U.S. immigration animated – This graphic shows all immigration to the U.S. since 1820 and the countries of origin, followed by graphs showing proportions:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3059714/this-reality-check-animation-maps-two-centuries-of-us-immigration

 

 

“Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration” by Adele Peters, May 11, 2016

Back to page one

 

            c. Common Core math sequence – This site from North Carolina State University lays out the sequence of math skills in sequential tiers, making it easy to trace advanced concepts back to their building blocks: www.turnonccmath.net

 

“Learning Trajectories for the K-8 Math Common Core Standards” from TurnOnCCMath

Back to page one

 

            d. Survey on teacher evaluation – This survey can be used by administrators to get feedback on the evaluation process from teachers:

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/central/pdf/REL_2016100.pdf

 

“The Examining Evaluator Feedback Survey” from the Institute of Education Sciences, November 2015

Back to page one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Copyright 2016 Marshall Memo LLC

 

If you have feedback or suggestions,

please e-mail [email protected]

 

 

About the Marshall Memo