Lesson Study Technique: What Teachers Can Learn From One Another

Horton, Melissa

CO

Hanford, E. (2014, September 14). ‘Lesson study’ technique: What teachers can learn from one another. Retrieved from http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/09/14/lesson-study-technique-what-teachers-can-learn-from-one-another/ 

Summary:

In Japan, professional development is known as a “lesson study” and is a long process in which teachers work together to solve a problem by studying the latest educational trends and looking at real lessons to gauge exactly what works and plan how to become more effective educators.  They then create their own lessons and teach these lessons both to their students and a real audience made up of colleagues and teachers from other schools who focus not on the teacher, but on the students and their reaction to the lesson.  In order to have this in-depth collaboration, Japan builds that time into school schedules.

Evaluation:

This article is a snapshot of what educators are doing in other countries, and it is just another example of how collaboration can take many forms.  After spending a substantial amount of time working closely together with experts and colleagues, teachers have the confidence to take risks with their lessons.  This text highlighted the importance of co-teaching and the value of creative partnership in education.

Teaching Students to Learn and to Work Well with 21st Century Skills: Unpacking the Career and Life Skills Domain of the New Learning Paradigm

Horton, Melissa

IL

Kivunjal, C. (2015). Teaching students to learn and to work well with 21st century skills: unpacking the career and life skills domain of the new learning paradigm. International Journal of Higher Education, 4 (1), 1­-11.

Summary:

This research article gives an in-depth overview and analysis of the Career and Life Skills domain which helps make up the framework by Partnership for Teaching 21^st Century Skills (P21).  The author explains which skills fall under the CLS strand and offers ideas on how to teach students to work effectively and cooperatively in the real world.  The article focuses on the need for educators to go beyond simply teaching content because there is greater competition than ever for higher education and career positions that require self-directed, independent and flexible young adults who are equipped to thrive in any environment.

Evaluation:

This author really delves into the rationale behind the Career and Life Skills set from P21 and breaks down each strand and expands on each skill.  The conclusion summed it up best with the explanation that although these skills are not new, they have never been integrated directly into the curriculum at most schools.  However, that is quickly changing.

It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

Posted by Karen Kotchka

IL

Boyd, Danah. (2014) It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. Yale University Press: New Haven, CT.

Summary

This full-length book is a well-written study that compiles and analyzes the results of on-the-ground research into how teenagers use social media.  It talks about the reasons and the ways that teens communicate and the platforms they use as well as addressing some of the dangers and problems that are real or that adults think are a problem with teens and social media.  Boyd also addresses the importance of digital literacy and how some teens are device savvy without being necessarily able to critically examine what is being put out there.

Evaluation

I thought this book was an excellent resource for any adult working with teenagers today.  It contained origianl thought as well as honest research and would be helpful to gain insight into how social media can be understood and exploited for learning.

Collaboration: Critical Success Factors for Student Learning

Posted by Karen Kotchka

CO

Haycock, K. (2007) Collaboration: Critical Success Factors for Student Learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 13 (1), 25-35.

Summary
This article gives an exhaustive list of the factors which predict success when it comes to collaboration in the school community.  Most of the factors have to do with good communication skills, common purposes and flexibility and adaptability.  Leadership is also seen as essential as well as staff, materials and time.  The benefits of collaboration are stated up front saying that collaboration ignites creativity among teachers and that creative fire spreads to students.  It also concludes by saying that collaboration is the single professional behavior for teacher librarians that can impact student achievement.

Evaluation

I liked being able to read through the various factors for successful collaboration so that I could use the article as a benchmark against my own school situation.  The article could be used by a teacher librarian preparing a case for increasing teacher collaboration.

NMC Horizon Report 2015 K-12 Edition

Posted by Karen Kotchka

ET

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Cummins, M. (2012). NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium

Summary

This report is a very valuable summary of the latest trends in educational technology that is produced annually and takes a five year look ahead at technologies for education.  The organization produces a version for K-12, higher ed, museums and libraries and breaks the trends down into short-term, mid-term and long-term time frames.  They also present the significant challenges impeding the introduction of educational technology broken down into solvable, difficult and wicked.  Finally, they present the important developments in educational technologies over the next one to five years.

Evaluation

I find the report very useful and interesting to read each year.  There is an executive summary so you can get all the main information quickly and easily and then just read the parts that apply to you.  It's a great way to stay abreast of developments in educational technology and start to plan ahead for what may affect you in your situation.

Teaching to Interrogate –A Humanities Research Project

Resource:

Schmidt, R. K., Giordano, E., Schmidt, G., & Kuhlthau, C. C. (2015.). A guided inquiry approach to    teaching the humanities research project. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Summary and Response:

This book is a really comprehensive guide towards introducing a humanities research project as a collaboration between TL and classroom teacher, whereby student, TL, and teacher are "each...a partner to the others" (p.8).  The students are guided through the process of understanding the purpose of the research paper – to draw their own  conclusions by looking at a variety sources from various formats.  Students are provided with a choice of pathways to hunt for information in which they may either begin with reference materials if they already have a  topic in mind or they can begin with magazine articles and examining their own interests in order  to identify a possible topic of cultural significance to research.

Students are guided through how to interrogate types of sources, including 11 questions to ask when looking at primary source, 11 more for a secondary source, and 11 for the tertiary source.  These questions aim to help students build a sense of how to locate bias, understand the influence of perspective, how inclusion or exclusion of information play a role in this, how to interpret user-generated comments, and more.  Ultimately students are also provided with a more extensive set of questions to use to interrogate 16 formats, including pottery, an allusion, a garment, graph, musical performance and so on.  Students are encouraged to look beyond print sources for their research, and they are also encouraged to write their own questions for these and other source formats.  I find these interrogations very helpful myself, and many of the questions they provide for a student examining a pottery sherd are questions I would have done well to consider years ago, not only as a student, but as a teacher.  Reading the questions they pose provides a paradigm for the types of questions one might ask in encountering a variety of artifacts and print genres.

As with the other two books by Schmidt I have read and reviewed here, students are carefully guided through the outlining and organizing of their information into a final product.  Even within this guidance, students are encourage to  find a system for tagging, sorting, and ultimately organizing information that makes the most sense to each individual student.  

Ultimately, the book paves the way for great collaboration between students, teachers, and librarians. There are many aspects of the research process that I recognize in my own process, but have never quite articulated so explicitly to myself.  Her work always strikes a balance between explicit guidance and freedom that I find nearly perfect.  The projects are time-consuming, but if I can find more teachers to collaborate on these projects, I feel it will be really transformative for all of us.

Collaborative Planning

Reece, Madison

CO

Garderen, D. V., Scheuermann, A., Jackson, C., & Hampton, D. (2009). Supporting the collaboration of special educators and general educators to teach students who struggle with mathematics: An overview of the research. Psychology in the Schools, 46(1), 56-78.

Garderen, Scheuermann, Jackson, and Hampton (2009) argue “Collaboration, in theory, between general educators and special educators is grounded in the idea that each educator has a unique knowledge base and expertise that, taken together, can address any gaps the other may have” (p. 57). The authors realize that each educator has differing perspectives and emphases, and this may be a source of contention when trying to collaborate with other educators.

Collaboration requires a dialogue between staff members to continually improve student performances. Educators should work together to plan their curriculums in order to produce greater understanding among their students. Though Garderen et al. (2009) argue collaboration may be frustrating at the beginning of the collaboration process, the outcomes outweigh the differing perspectives educators may have. Due to an immensely diverse range of learning styles, it’s important for educators to collaborate successfully and efficiently.