technology

3 tips to organize your students’ Google Docs

Posted on by Mark Isero

Google Docs Imagefavicon Google Docs (now Google Drive) is great. But if you’re a teacher, you might feel overwhelmed by the number of documents you receive from students. So much clutter!

Here are three tips to help you.

1. Do not have students share individual documents with you.
They will forget. Even if they remember, it’s not an elegant solution. See Tip #2.

2. Instead, set up shared folders.
When students drag their document into a shared folder that you have set up, two things happen at once: (1) You get the document, (2) The document is automatically organized.

There are three logical ways to create shared folders. They are (1) by student, (2) by assignment, (3) by class. Each option has its pluses and minuses.

If you choose to create folders by student (which I did last year and which was very successful), you’ll have many folders, but you’ll be able to see your student’s entire portfolio at a glance. This also keeps things private.

On the other hand, if you create folders by assignment, it’ll be easier to grade your essays, but you’ll have to create new folders all the time.

Most teachers create a folder for each class. This keeps everything tidy but allows students to view (and modify!) their peers’ work. Some teachers find the openness helpful because students can assist each other.

3. Insist on a common way for students to title their documents.
If you don’t tell students to title their documents, you’ll receive tons of documents titled “Untitled.” Best practice is to find an easy way for students to identify their name, class, and assignment.

Some teachers have crazy naming conventions, which usually involve underscores, first initials, and confusing spacing. Here’s mine:

Period Number Last Name, First Name: Assignment
2 Isero, Mark: Persuasive Essay

The period number comes in handy because Google Docs will group all documents with the same number up front. Then, having a student’s last name come first keeps documents alphabetized and easy for grading purposes. Finally, I prefer a generic assignment name (rather than the student’s original title) so I can search for essays later in case they get lost.

So there you have it — three tips  to organize your students’ Google Docs. Please let me know if you have a better system or if you have questions. favicon

teaching

Teaching and assessing character: Part 2

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon Since finishing up Paul Tough’s How Children Succeed (now #6 on The New York Times list of hardcover nonfiction best sellers) I’ve thought a lot about how to incorporate character skills into my classroom the next time I teach.

In my last post about character, I narrowed down a list of 24 character to a more manageable list of five: zest, grit, discipline, empathy, and integrity.

It’s a working list that might change. For example, I think I prefer “self-control” over “discipline.” And a few readers suggested “self-awareness” as a critical character skill to include. (Thank you, readers!)

Given that the final list may evolve — and perhaps I will involve my students in the process — the next step is to define the skills. That way, students can demonstrate them, and I can teach them.

Here is what I have so far. These are just from my head. Later I’ll consult other resources. Please feel free to challenge and improve:

1. Zest
Being joyful and positive and open to life and learning
Being present and participating fully

2. Grit
Working hard and conscientiously on an important long-term goal
Bouncing back from and persevering through challenges and failure

3. Self-control
Maintaining focus amid distractions
Controlling impulses and emotions, staying calm when irritated

4. Empathy
Respecting the dignity and feelings of others
Understanding how your actions affect others

5. Integrity
Doing the right thing even when it’s challenging
Being honest in your words and actions

So what do you think so far? Am I missing something huge? Or are there too many? Should I change my list or modify my descriptors? I’m interested in what you have to say!

Coming up: A little bit more about why. favicon

teaching

English teachers: Follow David Coleman

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon If you’re an English teacher right now, you might be noticing that there’s a lot going on.

If you teach fiction, people might be telling you to teach less of it and to switch to nonfiction. If you believe in teaching texts that are relevant to your students, you might be sensing sneers from colleagues. And if you like independent reading, well, you might be the pariah of your department.

The cause of this ruckus? It’s easy: A man named David Coleman.

David Coleman, now the president of the College Board, is the architect of the Common Core State Standards for English. Because nearly every state is moving to the Common Core in 2014, and because standardized testing will change to reflect those standards, Mr. Coleman is the guy to follow if you’re an English teacher. (Here’s a recent profile in The Atlantic.)

Some reasons why:

1. Mr. Coleman wants students to read more nonfiction.
To prepare students for college and career, the Common Core suggests that 70 percent of reading for high schoolers be “informational texts,” — in other words, nonfiction. English teachers worry that they’ll have to shoulder this shift because teachers of other disciplines often do not include reading as a major component of their curriculum.

2. Mr. Coleman wants to shift back to the canon.
Reading in high school isn’t rigorous enough, Mr. Coleman believes. Teachers don’t challenge students with complex texts and instead opt for works that students find more immediately relevant. The problem, according to Mr. Coleman, is that these texts are too simplistic and do not require adequate critical thinking. Also too easy are books that students choose themselves, so independent reading is a no-no.

3. Mr. Coleman advocates for close reading and text-based instruction.
Prereading activities serve only to offer students a way out of reading. Asking students to engage personally with a text and to make connections allow for answers not rooted in the author’s words. For Mr. Coleman, grappling with text closely is the only way to read.

4. Mr. Coleman shuns personal writing and champions argumentative writing with evidence-based support.
Imagery and figurative language and beautiful syntax are not on Mr. Coleman’s rubric for excellent writing. Neither is the ability to write a personal narrative. Rather, he insists on teaching arguments supported by text-based evidence. Don’t even think of assigning a short story or poem.

As I’m sure you notice, I find Mr. Coleman intriguing. (Here are a few more posts I’ve written about him.) He’s incredibly smart and forceful, and given my social studies background, I can see where he’s going.

At the same time, I worry about Mr. Coleman’s power. He’s just 42, and though he says the right things about teachers (you’re so important!) and kids of color (they can do it!), he comes across as slightly out of touch (and overly confident, bordering on arrogant).

English teachers, I encourage you to get to know Mr. Coleman more, listen to his speeches, and share your thoughts about him. What are your feelings about the Common Core State Standards and how they’ll change your practice? favicon

teaching

Teaching and assessing character: Part 1

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon Reading How Children Succeed has gotten me interested in how teachers could teach, build, assess, and grade students on their character skills.

The first step is to get the original list of 24 skills down to a manageable size. I’m hoping you could help me with this task.

Here they are:

  1. zest
  2. grit
  3. self-control
  4. social intelligence
  5. gratitude
  6. love
  7. hope
  8. humor
  9. creativity
  10. curiosity
  11. open-mindedness
  12. love of learning
  13. wisdom
  14. bravery
  15. integrity
  16. kindness
  17. citizenship
  18. fairness
  19. leadership
  20. forgiveness
  21. modesty
  22. prudence
  23. appreciation of beauty
  24. spirituality

Which ones do you vote for? Which character skills do you find most important and related to students’ academic success?

From that list of 24, KIPP chose seven to include on its Character Report Card:

  1. zest (approaching life with excitement and energy, feeling activated)
  2. grit (finishing what one starts despite obstacles)
  3. self-control (regulating what one feels and does, being self-disciplined)
  4. social intelligence (being aware of feelings of other people)
  5. curiosity (taking an interest, finding things fascinating)
  6. optimism (not on the list of 24)
  7. gratitude (being aware and thankful of the good things that happen)

What about that list? Do you think KIPP made good choices from the original 24?

For me, I’d like to get the list down even further, maybe to three or four. Here is my current thinking.

In general, I like what KIPP has done. Zest is one of my favorites, and I think optimism and curiosity both fit into zest nicely. Grit is great because it captures having a goal and not giving up, even over large periods of time. The concept of self-control is crucial, but I prefer the term discipline. And social intelligence is important, too, but it seems too long and not powerful enough. Maybe empathy instead? Finally, I’d like to add integrity from the original list of 24.

So this is my working list:

  1. zest
  2. grit
  3. discipline
  4. empathy
  5. integrity

What do you think? Any I’ve missed? Should I go fewer? Any better (and perhaps four-letter) synonyms for these terms? I appreciate all feedback!

Next step: Where does this go in my grading scheme? And how to assess it? favicon

teaching

I recommend How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon If you’re a teacher in an underfunded urban high school, it’s sometimes difficult to keep hope alive. No matter how hard you work, failure is all around you. And it’s menacing. And there’s a lot of it.

Even worse, failure is often predictable. The statistics are strong, and the patterns are unwieldy. You see students drop out. And even those students who succeed do so haltingly. You wonder if they’ll make it in college.

But then, if you’re lucky, you read a book like How Children Succeed, by Paul Tough, and all is well again.

I highly recommend that you read this book.

Mr. Tough’s argument is that the greatest determiner of success in school is not academic skill. Rather, it is character. Qualities like grit, self-control, social intelligence, and zest separate students who succeed from those who don’t.

(For many of you, these character traits seem foreign. Grit? Zest? What about integrity and compassion? you ask. I thought the same thing. In the book, Mr. Tough divides aspects of moral character from those of performance character. For poor kids of color, who have experienced severe stress in their childhoods, performance character skills like grit are what matters most.)

Leaning heavily on the research of Angela Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Tough emphasizes that character is malleable and can be taught. A ninth grader may enter high school with significant academic skill gaps, but if that student builds her performance character, she will have the resilience necessary to meet her long-term goal.

Although the last chapter left me wanting more how-to specifics, the rest of this short book is filled with bright and hardworking folks dedicated to the growth of young people.

And it got me thinking about my journey last year as an AP English teacher. A few weeks into the class, several students approached me and wanted to drop the course. It was too hard, they said. I was grading too harshly. There was no way they could do the work. At first, I was shocked by their low stamina and their willingness to quit. But then I read Mr. Tough’s article in The New York Times Magazine, and I realized that I needed to teach grit as much as I taught analytical reading of obscure and challenging texts.

So one day, as I passed back another set of mediocre essays, I introduced the notion of grit to my students. For several months, the word — which is funny to say, is similar to grits, and is evocative of dirt — became a little joke in our class. But the students soldiered on, bounced back from struggle, and kept going. I suppose I was teaching character.

Too bad my students did so poorly on the AP test. After all, this story would’ve had a better ending if they all passed with 5s. But that’s not reality, and that’s not what happened. I am hopeful, however, that my students, even though they did not reach that marker of success, will this year demonstrate the grit necessary to persist in college.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of my students tonight wrote the following on Facebook: “Life doesn’t get easier. You just get stronger.” favicon