Curriculum & Unit Design

3 Reasons to Rethink Your Basal Reader

Currently in my district at the elementary level, we are in the process of strategically moving away from our basal reading program. We’ve already “cut out” its writing component, as next year we’ll be hitting the ground running with Writing Workshop and the Units of Study. Also, we’ve begun the process of designing our own reading comprehension instruction with the assistance of Reading with Meaning, Strategies That Work, and Notice & Note (both fiction and non-fiction).

Now, while it may be “cool” and trendy to hate on textbooks, for the benefit of all parties involved – students, parents, teachers, administrators, etc. – I believe it’s important to be able to articulate why we are choosing to deemphasize the program.

With these thoughts in mind, here are three reasons to rethink your basal reader.

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Project-Based Learning Professional Development (part 3): The Workshop Model

By Ross Cooper 1 Comment

This post is the final of three installments that describe the three project-based learning (PBL) professional development sessions I facilitated for our Innovate Salisbury team, a team of 15 teachers engaging with building leaders, district leaders, and other experts/thought leaders to help shape the vision for teaching and learning in our classrooms…To read more about Innovate Salisbury, take a look at this Edutopia article I collaborated on with my Superintendent, Randy Ziegenfuss (@ziegeran), and Assistant Superintendent, Lynn Fuini-Hetten (@lfuinihetten).

The first PBL session was more of a general overview of PBL. The second session contained a module in which teachers, playing the role of students, designed student-created rubrics for a PBL unit on opinions and arguments.

The Third Session

The third session followed a workshop model in which teachers spent the majority of the time working on this template, which was adapted from the Buck Institute for Education. (Just in case, here’s a PDF version.) While the work was taking place, teachers were able to rely on each other and/or administrators for support.

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Should practitioners ignore researchers?

By Ross Cooper 4 Comments

Since the start of my career in 2007, I have witnessed some form of educational debate take place on almost a daily basis. And, with the rise of social media – in particular, Facebook and Twitter – these types of conversations are now that much easier to create, engage in, and/or find.

The Problem

Overall, the majority of this communication does ultimately benefit our students, but at the same time I believe we owe it to our profession to not just interact when we’re “in the know,” but also when there is a lot to be learned…And, furthermore, we should be willing to admit to ourselves and others that we just might not know everything.

Over the past month I have witnessed a few arguments unfold on Twitter in which a couple of educators from other districts were justifying their actions by declaring, “Those ideas [proposed by others in the district] wouldn’t work with my students,” and at the same time they discounted the work of highly respected researchers because “They aren’t in the classroom!” In general, these situations were your typical resistance to change.

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If It’s Not Medium Agnostic, It’s Not Project-Based Learning

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

In the last post we explored explicit steps for the designing of student-created rubrics, and we touched upon the significance of rubrics/project-based learning (PBL) experiences being medium agnostic. In this particular context, this term can be defined as…

Learning that is driven by enduring understandings (not tasks), and therefore students can demonstrate their knowledge however they choose.

Now, let’s look at how we can promote medium agnostic learning experiences in our classrooms…

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Project-Based Learning Professional Development (part 2): Student-Created Rubrics

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

In a previous post I described the first of three project-based learning (PBL) professional development sessions I facilitated for our Innovate Salisbury team, a team of 15 teachers engaging with building leaders, district leaders, and other experts/thought leaders to help shape the vision for teaching and learning in our classrooms.

While the first session was more of a general overview of PBL, this past Wednesday we focused on student-created rubrics.

Here is a look at what took place:

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Inquiry is King. Here’s Why…

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

What is Inquiry?

Inquiry-based learning can be defined as learning that “starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios – rather than simply presenting established facts or portraying a smooth path to knowledge. The process is often assisted by a facilitator.”

In short, through some form of productive struggle, students “uncover” material, as opposed to content coverage and the memorization/regurgitation of facts and knowledge…For a look at what this uncovering looks like and why it is so crucial, refer to a previous post, “Why I Refused to Flip My Classroom.” In fact, I highly encourage you to take a few short minutes to read the post and then return to this one.

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Project-Based Learning Professional Development (part 1)

By Ross Cooper 6 Comments

Last Wednesday I facilitated a few hours of project-based learning (PBL) professional development for our Innovate Salisbury team, a team of 15 teachers engaging with building leaders, district leaders, and other experts/thought leaders to help shape the vision for teaching and learning in our classrooms.

This year, the team will be meeting a total of about seven times, and four of these sessions will feature some form of PBL learning, this past week being the first of the four.

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Curriculum Mapping, 5 Ideas

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

Last week I had the opportunity to attend two days of Curriculum Mapping Boot Camp with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Dr. Marie Alcock in New York City. Here are five of my takeaways:

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Reconstructing Multiple-Choice Tests

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

The Problem

In education, the most common type of summative assessment consists of nothing more than multiple-choice questions. This is a problem. In general, these types of questions (1) do not lend themselves to higher-order thinking, and (2) do not promote creative expression as they declare, “You must demonstrate your learning in this way!”

From what I have seen/experienced, many teachers recognize the drawbacks of constantly using publisher created multiple-choice tests, but they do not have the confidence to try something new…As a classroom teacher, it took me a few years to overcome this fear of creating my own assessments. Looking back at some of what I put together, nothing was perfect, but I do believe it was all a step in the right direction.

Here’s the thing…

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Can Textbooks Save Our Worst Teachers?

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

In one of his TED Talks, Seth Godin mocks textbooks:

The textbook! Now if you want to teach somebody how to become passionate about…American history, why would you give them this (as he waves the textbook in the air)? Do people walk into Barnes & Noble and say, “I’m really interested in that latest, gripping thing that’s gonna get me all engaged about the Civil War. Do you have one of those textbooks in stock?”

I love the practical way in which Godin addresses an overreliance (or reliance) on the textbook, a problem that is often viewed as one of the main obstacles to educators moving forward with their practice.

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