What's more powerful than WORDLE or Tagul? What's able to access related images altogether on a single webpage?
Well, it's WordSift, an ELL resource, created by a research team at Stanford University. The image to the right is a representation of the WordSift of my blog post, Tuesday Trait: Voice
This web application was created to enhance student opportunity in learning English, yet WordSift can make a wonderful addition to any classroom, from kindergaten to college. This web application contains various tools you can use to more effectively teach lessons using the strategies discussed and explained in Classroom Instruction That Works: Research Based Instructional Strategies, written by Dr. Robert Marzano and his research team.
Try out WordSift! Only your imagination can limit your uses for this application.
A new web application, Amplify, simplifies a number of learning strategies that anyone can easily use. Amplify makes ordinary notes expand into a marvelous presentation blog format that can include ideas, commments notes, quotations, and images that form a clog. Anyone who enjoys learning and sharing their ideas online can benefit from using this new web application, Amplify.
Clipmarks has been amplified in this new web application, and we are the beneficiaries. Try it out. I think you will find a variety of ways to use it.
Amplify makes a wonderful educational online tool. Teachers can use the group function to encourage students to take notes and share them in a project. Students can use Amplify to develop their reports, summaries or presentations.
Since your Amplified Clip goes straight into a Clip blog called a clog, you can easily start a group blog where your friends, family and coworkers can add comments if you like. Although you don't have to accept any comments if you are using it for a particular purpose. In a group or by yourself, Amplify gives you an opportunity to develop a special clip blog, so you can keep track of all you are reading.
Amplify DOES NOT require a toolbar to make it function properly. All you need to do is download a tiny icon with a drop down function box. There is a Firefox extension icon(it also works in Flock), as well as a Microsoft Internet Explorer extension icon. It is clean and out of the way. When you want to use it, the Amplify extension icon is available right away.
Several of us are testing a group clog entitled ABC's of PLN Power, and I want to invite you to join us in this beta. Add your comments and suggestions. We can guide the development of this wonderful web application through our participation.
Photo by Kaptain Kobold
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
When you SEE objects in your mind, do you sort them by their characteristics? by color or shape or size? OR Do you sort them in groups?
When you do this, you are VISUALIZING a graphic organizer that you can create in the World of Matter. The best graphic organizers are those that spring up organically in the course of working. The words and phrases can be organized as you think about them when the need arrives. You can put "stuff" together or to separate "stuff".
While there are many types of graphic organizers, the most common is probably the simplest to use. It is the T-Chart. Not only is it easy to use, it is also extremely effective in a wide range of applications, from brainstorming to assessment.
The T-Chart is a binary checklist, but it also has an advantage of providing data to develop questions that can guide the learner and teacher in more effective learning opportunities. Because of this characteristic, it is a great organizer.
What we know about graphic organizers, in general, ranks them, among instructional strategies, the best, most effective, and easy to implement in real world situations. In the seminal meta-analysis of learning strategies, Classroom Instruction That Works: Research Based Instructional Strategies, Dr. Robert Marzano, et al, dedicate an entire chapter to Graphic Organizers. They discuss the data, the instructional strategy and what implementation looks like in the classroom.
While the T-chart can be helpful in many areas, there is a use that relates to just-in-time learning and teaching which must happen at various moments in any form of constructivist paradigm, including project based learning. For instance, an important part of project is working as a team. If the team doesn't function well, the project will not meet expectations of the team or the supervisor/advisor.
Here is how a T-Chart can help. First ask team members questions...not too many questions, but questions like:
1. What does a team look like?
2. What does a team sound like?
Let each make lists, then join the lists in a brainstorming session USING THE T-CHART...remember...no judging or eliminating anyone's ideas.
Once the ideas are listed on the T-chart in the TWO categories, let each team member have an opportunity to explain or defend their ideas. Some may decide that their idea is similar to another. All team members will listen to each explanation, before they say anything negative or positive.
The team may think of other ideas while they are in discussion mode. When they are finished, the supervisor/advisor asks, "Do you see these ideas being implemented by your team? If not, how could you help to make your team look and sound more like the ideas discussed today?
If the team members aren't sure how they might help make the ideas come true, use another graphic organizer to plan how the team can fit their ideal.
Here is the point where the team interactions may dissolve into individual actions and distractions. Stop the conversation. Let them each take home a copy of the completed T-chart. Encourage them to think how can we (they) as a team can implement these ideas. Encourage them to get feedback from their part of the community (parents, siblings, friends, etc).
The next day, work through the process again. If this doesn't work, then "direct instruction" strategies must be put into play. For instance, advisor/supervisor will state: "Our teams WILL look like this". "Our teams WILL sound like this". "Here are the activities that must occur to make these ideas work". Then the team members will study this T-Chart and implement the ideas in their team interactions to be evaluated daily, using a rubric with goals developed from the T-Chart.
T-Charts are simple. T-Charts are cool. T-Charts are effective. Let's all use T-Charts.
Using the concept of simulating the element names from the Periodic Table of Elements, a fantastic mashup of visualizations can remind teachers of instructional strategies, modalities and other important considerations. The Periodic Table of Elements becomes the ultimate Graphic Organizer for teachers interested in improving their art and craft. The authors, Ralph Lengler and Martin Eppler, call it the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. It is fabulous. I wonder if Dr. Robert Marzano has seen this?
Robert Marzano with his research associates, Debra J. Pickering and Jane E. Pollock, completed a meta-analysis a few years ago to determine what instructional methods were most effective according to the research already accomplished. This was seminal research by Marzano's team, because they were able to pull together various ideas on how to improve student learning in a cohesive unit that the education community could effectively put into practice. Their final product was the book, Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
In their book, Marzano, Pickering and Pollock discuss various instructional strategies that teachers, students and schools can implement to increase learning, but they are very specific in their idea that instructional strategies are not the whole picture in effective teaching and learning. They talk of the
...three related areas [of effective pedagogy]: (1) the instructional strategies used by the teacher, (2) the management techniques used by the teacher, and (3) the curriculum designed by the teacher (see Figure 1.4).
We all admire Better Schools and Classrooms. Why? For inspiration, confirmation and professional development because each of us wants a better school and classroom. We're teachers! We're achievers!
In pursuit of this excellent achievement, there is one book, Classroom Instruction that Works, that you can use and make Better Schools and Classrooms. Read it one day and use the ideas in your class with great success the very next day. Many of the ideas may be familiar, yet even the most experienced teacher should find this meta-analysis helpful for improved practice....for Better Schools and Classrooms.
Research in education has been vastly under reported in our American media, even the educational media. To remedy that, many educational research leaders began to perform a particular type of research called meta-analysis. While some research can summarize a single researcher's lifetime of accomplishments, such as Vygotsky, Art Costa or Howard Gardner, meta-analysis is compilation of combined research of many people on ONE TOPIC like the research that encompasses theEffective Schools Research or Classroom Instruction that Works.
No matter the case, Robert Marzano et al picked an excellent topic and performed a very extensive meta-analysis of educational research that relates to this topic of Classroom Instruction that Works. One of the most appealing qualities of this meta-analysis is that one teacher doesn't have to practice all the instructional strategies to improve their classroom instruction. Each teacher can pick one or more of instructional methodologies that fit in their own toolbox.
Any teacher can improve their own skills by reading this research summary. Entire schools, districts or states can definitely increase student achievement by improving their skills in the practice of the tenets driven by the meta-analytic research of Classroom Instruction that Works.
