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"Spangler, Donna"
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MICRO APPROACH, MAJOR IMPACT
WITH MICROCREDENTIALS, EDUCATORS CAN TAILOR LEARNING TO THEIR SPECIFIC NEEDS As a classroom teacher for 29 years before becoming an instructional coach, I have been on the receiving end of many well-intentioned school initiatives and professional learning experiences that have gone nowhere in terms of creating lasting, meaningful change. DEVELOP YOUR OWN MICROCREDENTIALS When I first pitched the idea of creating a few in-house microcredentials to use with teachers as a choice for a 2017-18 voluntary pilot in our district's differentiated supervision plan, I was surprised that some administrators thought the only way to do microcredentialing was by purchasing them through a commercial platform or technology companies providing their own certification, badging, or microcredentialing. By the end of the month, participants were expected to: * Discuss their views on the topic of data; * Explain the importance of data when it comes to school improvement efforts; * Articulate how data help teachers; * Write a PLC SMART goal for implementation; * Explain the differences between formative data, summative data, macrodata, and microdata, and data snapshots; * Create a common formative assessment as a PLC to administer to students; and * Track checks for understanding used during Tier 1 instruction. To help them meet this month's objectives, teachers read and watched instructional content on how data help teachers, what teachers see in data, educational data background, and sources of data; participated in discussions about learning from data and teacher use of data; and reflected on tasks they'd performed, including: * Identifying an instructional focus for PLC based on student need; * Writing a PLC SMART goal for students to implement within three to four weeks; * Creating a common formative assessment to administer to students; and * Tracking checks for understanding conducted during Tier 1 instruction.
Journal Article
Micro Approach, Major Impact: With Microcredentials, Educators Can Tailor Learning to Their Specific Needs
Microcredentials create opportunities for continuing growth of all teachers based on specific needs. They provide ways for teachers to lead their own learning while allowing administrators to identify and address teachers' needs as well as the expertise teachers have to share with their colleagues. Microcredentials are different from traditional professional learning approaches because they are: (1) Competency-based; (2) Personalized; (3) On demand; and (4) Shareable. When experienced in a consistent, ongoing way, this kind of microlearning builds up knowledge over time, even when the professional learning occurs in bite-sized pieces. When it is done well, it produces real behavior change that results in improved teaching, because teachers must document their learning using work samples, videos, student work, peer observation, collegial collaboration, portfolios, teacher and student reflections, or other artifacts. An assessor reviews the evidence of practice against a rubric to determine the teacher's progress toward the desired practice and decides whether to award the microcredential, often in the form of a digital badge, certification, or credential. The author describes the first year of this system in her school, and reports that all participating teachers had completed the microcredentials, and the results were resoundingly positive.
Journal Article
The Solution Is in the Room
This article discusses factors to consider as we evaluate the professional learning occurring in our schools. The article describes how a committee of six teachers and one administrator at Hershey Middle School in Pennsylvania's Derry Township School District adapted an activity for use in a two-hour professional learning session called \"The Solution Is in the Room.\" The committee started with backward design, knowing that they wanted to address many of the questions, projects, and challenges teachers were facing. They designed an initial survey to capture teachers' expectations about the learning experience (i.e. impact, what they planned to change in their classroom, what they learned), then followed up with interviews. The activity illustrated in this article is an example of a structured protocol that accesses teacher voices, engages in immediate problem-solving, and leverages teachers' experiences and expertise. Because teachers have daily contact with learners and are in the best position to directly influence student learning, timely, high-quality, and teacher-driven professional development is crucial to the success of any education reform effort.
Journal Article
Effects of two foreign language methodologies, communicative language teaching and teaching proficiency through reading and storytelling, on beginning-level students' achievement, fluency, and anxiety
No empirical studies exist comparing the effectiveness of the two prevalent foreign language methodologies, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS), at helping students achieve second language acquisition. In turn, the purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental study was to examine differences in second language acquisition that were observed for students taught under the CLT methodology versus that observed for students taught under the TPRS methodology. Based on second language acquisition theory, the research questions addressed differences in achievement, fluency, and anxiety in beginning-level foreign language students learning Spanish. Specifically, 14 middle-school students and 51 high-school students received instruction using the CLT methodology while 19 middle school students and 78 high school students received instruction under the TPRS methodology. Measurements were obtained on the reading, writing, and speaking subsets of the Standards-based Measurement of Proficiency, a web-based language test. In addition, measurements were obtained from Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope’s Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. Independent samples t tests were used to analyze scores from a non-equivalent group design. A statistically higher level of speaking fluency was observed in the group using the TPRS methodology. This study contributes to positive social change by providing evidence on the effectiveness of the TPRS instruction for (1) promoting speaking skills among students, (2) guiding teachers’ efforts at promoting speaking skills, and (3) it contributes to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language’s goal of improving foreign language instruction.
Dissertation
On the water front
The bottom line is Utah has to figure out how it will deliver 646,000 acre-feet more, or about two-thirds more water than the amount being used by Utah households today. For the most part, efforts are focused on the roughly 420,000 acre-feet of water going unused down the Green and Colorado rivers, and another 250,000 acre-feet in the Bear River. Another 120,000 acre-feet of water can be developed from other rivers, but this is less likely, given current economics, to make its way to heavily populated areas. Zack Frankel, executive director of Utah Rivers Council and Utah's most vocal advocate of water conservation, agrees the perception that Utah is running out of water is a \"myth.\" But he diverges from state water planners when it comes to how to meet future demands, instead criticizing the lack of foresight in state policy that has focused on supply rather than demand.
Newspaper Article
Fossil experts fear, loathe BLM official
[Don Burge] and [Laurie Bryant] have had a long-running feud ever since a dispute over the BLM's handling of a permit to dig for dinosaurs in the San Rafael Swell. The matter was settled in favor of the Prehistoric Museum, but only after the Utah Attorney General's Office threatened to file charges against Bryant for illegally taking away a museum permit to dig fossils and giving it to another researcher. Bryant is the BLM official who issues all permits to excavate dinosaur and other fossils on most public lands in Utah. By controlling who gets permits, Bryant is the gatekeeper for all fossil research in the state. She not only decides who will be allowed to dig fossils but where. And she also decides if proposals are up to scientific standards. According to correspondence obtained by the Deseret Morning News through the Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA), the BLM, at Bryant's behest, ordered the Utah Geological Survey (where [Jim Kirkland] works) to remove a state Web page offering information on where the public could legally collect fossils. And Kirkland was chastised by the BLM for conducting an educational field trip for other paleontologists without first getting a BLM permit to do so.
Newspaper Article
Utah's N-waste ploy falls short
A behind-the-scenes attempt by the Utah delegation to attach wilderness language to the Defense Reauthorization Act -- which could have blocked the temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah and helped protect Hill Air Force Base -- has fallen short. Utah Gov. Olene Walker met with the Utah delegation earlier this week to plot strategy, and the wilderness approach was deemed the best strategy currently available to help the state's efforts to block the waste. In fact, the drive to protect Hill Air Force Base is every bit as strong among the Utah delegation as is the effort to keep nuclear waste out of Utah.
Newspaper Article
Environmentalists seeing gray skies on Earth Day
Despite environmentalists' bashing of the [Bush] administration, a recent Gallup poll shows 44 percent of Americans think Bush is doing a good job handling the environment. On one hand, the Bush administration and its interior secretary are far more politically savvy than the last GOP administration that tried to loosen environmental restrictions. In the 1980s, environmentalists effectively cast James Watt, interior secretary to President Reagan, in the role of an environmental Darth Vader. For example, Utah wilderness advocates are pushing 9.1 million acres of wilderness with a bill in Congress called the Red Rock Wilderness Act. But you would be hard pressed to find many red rocks among the millions of acres of proposed wilderness in Utah's west desert.
Newspaper Article
Environmental legislation is chopped down
\"There is a fear for those kinds of environmental suggestions that are automatically thought to be heavy handed,\" said Debbie Goodman, lobbyist for the Audubon Council of Utah. \"That's disappointing. A lot of us promote environmental ideas in a moderate fashion, but how much of a gentler touch can you give?\" Instead, they reluctantly passed one bill that clears the way for the state to develop its own wolf management plan with the hope the federal government will give Utah authority over the protected species. And they passed a bill clarifying the conditions whereby Utah wolves could be moved from one area of the state to another. What could have been the biggest blow for Utah's environment came on the last day of the session when lawmakers raided $650,000 from two accounts set aside to preserve open spaces and river corridors, and build hiking and biking trails. In the end they put back $450,000.
Newspaper Article