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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week
Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here. Here are this week’s picks: How to Streamline IEP Paperwork for Special and General Education Teachers is from Edutopia. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES ABOUT IEPS. What Are the Best Fluency Learning Targets? I Think My School is Overdoing It is from Timothy Shanahan. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Reading Fluency (Including How To Measure It). Accelerate or Remediate? You’re At The Controls. is from Middleweb. I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES ABOUT ACCELERATED LEARNING. Explicit Inquiry: A Way Out of the Inquiry vs. Explicit Instruction Wars is from Sol In The Wild (also check out If “Inquiry” Or “Direct Instruction” Is The Question, Then I Think “Inductive Learning” Is The Answer).       The Best Online Dramatic Video Series Specifically Designed For English Language Learners
Obviously, our students can learn a lot of English by watching regular television series and using closed captioning. But there are also decent online dramatic series that are specifically designed for language learning. During my first years of teaching English Language Learners, my students and I enjoyed The Connect With English dramatic video series designed to teach English. It eventually got to be a bit dated, and so we stopped using it. It is still available for free online. They even had accompanying workbooks, though Katie Hull and I developed our own worksheet that could be used for any of the videos (and other ones, too). I recently learned about a New Zealand-based organization called Chasing Time English that produces multiple similar series for ELLs. They’re all available to stream for free, and they have tons of accompanying teaching materials for each one. There may be some minor issues with accents and certain vocabulary if you’re going to use in the United States, but those can be easily handled. If I still had my own classroom, I’d definitely give them a try…. You can find many episodes of another similar series, Extra English, online. Sesame English is good for young learners.  Surprise, Surprise! It’s A Lot Easier For A School To Boast Of High Test Scores When They Can Pick & Choose Their Students
I’ve written and shared a lot about how some boast that their wonderful and innovative strategies that work well with highly motivated upper income children can easily be applied everywhere and uplift all students. Many of these “teacher-proof” students would do great in whatever system they’re placed in. And, more often than not, their teachers are no better and, sometimes, even worse than the rest of us (see No Sh_T Sherlock, Another Study Finds That Just Because Your Students Do Well At Advantaged School Doesn’t Mean You’ll Have The Same Success At A Low-Income One). Alpha School has been the latest “innovator” claiming to crack the code of teaching – with tuition as high as $75,000. To their credit, they tried it out in Arizona, where they had to take all comers, and flopped miserably. Dan Meyer, who does incredible work writing about AI in education, has the scoop at Does Alpha School Work for Regular Kids? If you want to learn more about Alpha School, here are links to other articles I’ve previously shared here: Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out is from Wired. ‘Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs:’ Inside an AI-Powered Private School is from 404 Why the Future of College Could Look Like OnlyFans is from The New Yorker.  Classroom Before The First Day Of School Though, This Time, It’s My Grandson’s!
I posted photos of my classroom for many years here on the day before school began. Now that I’m retired, I can pass the torch to my grandson , Shea Rusakowicz , who begins his teaching career tomorrow! Good luck, Shea!  A Look Back: Every School District Staffperson In Charge Of Curriculum Adoption Should Read This Piece Explaining Why We Teachers Tend To Not Use The MaterialsFor the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2019.
Dylan Wiliam shared an incredibly important piece on Twitter explaining how Districts screw-up adopting materials, including technology:
Why aren’t teachers using the resources companies sell to their districts? is the title of the report by Thomas Arnett. It’s from The American Enterprise Institute, which is not my favorite “think tank.” But it nails how districts mess-up their district materials decisions (see excerpt at the top of this post). It even pinpoints how surveys and typical teacher “input” doesn’t work, because then teachers tend to say what district staff wants to hear. It’s definitely worth reading the entire report, including his recommendations about what districts should do, instead. Here are some previous posts that are related to the points raised in the report, and support them: Is Any Teacher Surprised That New Study Finds Textbooks Not Key To Student Learning? The Best Resources For Adapting Your Textbook So It Doesn’t Bore Students To Death What Advice Would you Offer to Textbook Publishers? is from my Education Week Teacher column. The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Careful Around Ed Tech  More Recent Articles |
