Winter 2003 issue

Welcome to the Trillium, the OACSD e-Newsletter!

Contents
1. Message from the President -Bev Inglis 2. Upcoming Events 3. Article Theme: Diversity by Design Vive La Différence! by John Myers, OISE Epistle Adapatation, by Michael Tudor OISE 4. Regional Information 5.. Submission Guidelines 6. Responses from our readers 7. Related links 8. Art & Soul Conference Kits Available	2003 Conference attendees

 1.  Ontario ASCD President's Message

Season's Greetings,

May you all enjoy a wonderful holiday season filled with family and friends, joy and laughter. As the year end approaches, I can't help but reflect on the highlights of the past year: new members joined our Board of Directors, we enjoyed a successful summer retreat, the International Conference was a major success, and our membership numbers increased.

We were very pleased to welcome the following members to our board this year: Edie Kaus (Mississauga), James Mercer (Renfrew), Nancy Polack (Sudbury), Jennifer Jilks-Racine (Nepean), Margaret Skinner (Kanata), Evelyn Steinberg (North York),

Our second International Conference in Toronto, on October 15-18, entitled "The Art and Soul of Teaching: Supporting Communities that Learn," was a major success. The three strands: planning, assessing, instructing, allowed educators the flexibility to attend different areas of interest. We held a pre-conference for the first time, as well as a 2.5 day conference. The feedback about our speakers and workshops was extremely positive. We also made note of suggestions to improve the next conference, which is planned for April 2005.

Another exciting event that is coming up in the New Year is the ASCD Institutes in Toronto in February. They will focus on the following topics: "The Collaborative Analysis of Student Work: A Valuable System for Teacher Growth" Feb 5-6, 2004. The Second Institute is called "Assessing Your Reading Program: Analyzing Students Effects and Program Quality" Feb 5, 2003. The descriptions of these Institutes are on the ASCD website under Professional Development.

Our Newsletter is now on-line and we post upcoming events regularly on our website and encourage our members to read and comment. If you are interested in contributing an article on a current topic, please contact Jennifer Jilks-Racine. We look forward to the New Year and our plans to expand our professional development opportunities to serve our members better.

Have a happy new year!

Bev Inglis, President of OASCD

3. Articles: Printer Friendly Version

 Vive La Différence!

by John Myers (OISE)

We know that students throughout their years of schooling go through changes of all sorts: changes which are constant, yet irregular. How can we best work with the shifting individual and group changes occurring in every classroom? Perhaps the first step in adapting teaching to such diversities is to recognize the many ways in which students differ.

Heterogeneous classes exist at all levels, even in senior high courses designed for university-destinations (King, 2002). The challenges we need to face include:

• meeting the needs of struggling learners who are usually left to sink or swim
• meeting the needs of high achieving learners who are also left on their own because they can "do it" resulting in these people not being stretched. The usual adjustment of giving them more of the same is a recipe for boredom at best and burnout at worst.
• meeting the needs of the "typical" learner by teaching standard curriculum in a standard manner, even though the concept of typical is problematic. (from Tomlinson, 1999).

What are some ways that students differ which can affect achievement and what are some possibilities for working productively with the diversities we face in all classes?

• Cognitive capacity, a.k.a. "intelligence": While this has been traditionally regarded as fixed and unitary; i.e., a single I.Q. score, there are new views suggesting that one "gets smarter" and that there are different ways of being smart. Robert Sternberg and Howard Gardner are recent proponents of a pluralistic view of intelligence. For example, Gardner suggests that there are at least eight ways learners can demonstrate their ability to solve problems and fashion products (Gardner, 1999). Even researchers holding traditional views of intelligence argue that schools have over emphasized IQ by confusing "achievement" with "ability". Others have suggested that IQ is a minor predictor of success in life (Goleman, 1998).

Classroom Implications: Some learners will always seem to learn more quickly and more deeply than others. Our task is to use the most powerful teaching strategies to maximize student learning.

• Learning Styles / Intelligences / Modalities: The concept is simple; namely, that students learn in different ways and when in novel situations have preferred ways of proceeding. There are been a number of approaches used for applying this to classrooms such as 4Mat, True Colors, Myers-Briggs and the work of the Dunns and Gregorc. It is complementary to multiple intelligence theories, cognitive development and constructivism.

Classroom Implications: Variety is the spice of learning as well as of life.

• Cognitive Developmental Level: Despite revisions suggesting that he both underestimated the onset of concrete operations and overestimated the onset of formal operations, Piaget's general theory of cognitive development helps to explain different ways in which students come to make sense of the world. The work of constructivists such as Vygotsky suggest how group interaction and other forms of scaffolding can provide students with a continuum of examples (Arlin, 1986) promoting cognitive development. The transition from concrete to formal operations and how students come to learn about their world seems to occur in the senior years of high school for some, but still only for a minority of students.

Classroom Implications: Even university classes use visuals, organizers, group discussion and other forms of scaffolding. Senior teachers who stick to a narrow repertoire of strategies may be decades out of date with what is happening in post secondary classes.

• Motivation: Students differ in their disposition to work hard and persistently at challenging tasks. Among the factors that influence motivation are self-esteem, peer culture, home culture, views of intelligence, views of school, interest and views of the subject. Factors influencing motivation differ among students, with race, culture, sex and class being important variables. For example, in cultures which stress cooperation, cooperative group learning principles can be highly effective.

Classroom Implications: The importance of a positive yet productive classroom climate cannot be underestimated.

• Prior content knowledge, perceptions and experiences: Too often schools fail to determine a student's background experiences and fail to take advantage of what students already know. Furthermore, the "alternative frameworks" or "deep theory" students bring to a class may interfere with student comprehension of ideas raised in instruction. For example, students bring stereotypes of people and groups to History and Social Science classes or inaccurate notions of how objects fall to the Science classroom. Efforts to counter such notions are hard to change. Instead students will keep two sets of beliefs simultaneously in their heads. One set is for the teacher and the test, another set is often what they really believe. The effects of holding these conflicting perceptions are often seen at the university level when students who have gone through many years of science instruction are confused about what seem to be "basic" concepts of matter and energy. This is also true in writing assignments in which students think of writing as descriptive, based on prior learning, rather than analysis and explanation, as History and Social Science classes stress.

Classroom Implications: Since you cannot teach all of the content in any course in a whole class setting, allow for choices which can be exercised by students in seminars, performance tasks to culminate units or independent study units.

• Skill level: Skills can be taught. Schools often confuse skills with attitudes and/or underestimate the efforts required for skills instruction. A blitz on many skills at the beginning of the year is not enough. Note the comments in the previous section about student confusion about the nature of historical writing or the laws of physics. Teachers in the next grade, even university teachers often complain that students were not taught these skills. They are wrong. We did teach these but because such teaching was not systematic or reinforced or supported throughout the grades, students have not learned.

Classroom Implications: One promising approach combining skills teaching and assessment involves the concept of "habits of mind" (Costa & Kallick, 2000).

• Facility in the language of instruction: Some disciplines, such as History, place significant linguistic demands on students because of the abstract nature of important concepts and the need to use connectives such as "and", "because of" "and "however" to construct arguments. Other disciplines such as Science have a concise technical vocabulary. Failure to clearly identify the linguistic demands of a discipline can result in poor diagnosis of learning difficulties and the creation of a "language gap" in which teachers speak at one level of language and students interpret in another.

Classroom Implications: Literacy is everyone's business!

• Race/culture/sex/age/class/perceptions of attractiveness and popularity:
Theories such as structural bias and expectation help explain differences in achievement. For example, if boys are "expected" to perform well in mathematics and science, they will dominate small group work. If those who talk more, learn more, then we'll have a self-fulfilling prophesy situation, unless measures are taken to raise the status of female students in such situations (Cohen, 1994).

Classroom Implications: Student choice matters. You can "differentiate" the curriculum through

• the content that students learn
• the assessment tools used
• the performance tasks selected
• the instructional strategies used (Gregory & Chapman, 2002).

So What do We Do Now?

Curriculum and teaching matter- even more so when most classes from K-12 are characterized by diversity. The implication I draw from this and from the changes over the past decade and a half is more need for quality professional development. Here organizations like OASCD can play a vital role.

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An Epistle To Teachers Adapted by Michael Tudor (OISE)

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1. Though I teach with the fluency of an orator or politician, and have not love for my individual pupils, I am as a radio with static, or a computer with a faulty memory chip.

2. Though I have the I. Q. of a genius and possess many degrees from universities, and have not love, I have nothing to offer my class.

3. Though I spend my salary on visual aids and textbooks by experts, and burn the midnight oil studying them, and have not love, it will do little to help me.

4. Love makes one very kind and patient toward the slowest and the naughtiest pupil.

5. It envies not another teacher's good fortune, does not make one conceited about his own abilities, nor allow one to judge the actions of a fellow staff member hastily.

6. It is never happy at another's misfortunes or evil doing, but rejoices when a fellow teacher is praised.

7. It makes one watch his own conduct carefully, realizing the influence wielded by a teacher; prevents one from thinking too much about money; does not get angry at every suspected slight; looks for the best in those he teaches.

8. Love endures many things which are aggravating, always hoping at the end of a particularly trying day or year that the next would be better.

9. Though intelligence, brilliance, education, and experience seem to bring results, love in the end will not fail.

10. For though we have a little understanding of human personality, with love we can attain much.

11. When I was a student, I was immature in conversation, thought, and behaviour; but now that I am an adult and a teacher, I must be beyond childishness if I would turn my pupils toward maturity of outlook.

12. Though many times I fail to see that I have received any results in my work with a particular pupil, nevertheless, in after years the results will be there.

13. For a teacher must continue to have patience, humour, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is LOVE.

Adapted by Michael Tudor, presented at the October 16th OASCD Conference in Toronto.

Website: www.mtudor.com

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4. Regional Information

Peel: Contact: co-chairs: Cindy Horvath and Rosemary Sutton

Peel Regional did a massive job of helping organize and prepare for the International Conference. Kudos to this group. Plans are underway for the 2005 conference!

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Eastern Ontario Regional of Ontario ASCD Chair: Nicola Benton.

Ontario ASCD Eastern Ontario Regional proudly presented… "THE BRAIN - THE HEART OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT"
	OASCD Regional Presentation in Ottawa "THE BRAIN - THE HEART OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT" Chris Ward and Jim Craigen Oct. 2nd, 2003

5. Submission Guidelines. Watch for our next issue: March 2004 issue

Theme: Legal Issues First draft due Jennifer Jilks-Racine: February 10, 2004 Send submissions to Jennifer Jilks-Racine: October 10, 2003. Next issue: June 2004 Theme: Current Trends-Relevant Research First draft to Jennifer Jilks-Racine: May 10, 2004

Contributor's Guidelines No more than 1000 words. Please cite sources and include links, include biographical and/or contact information. The Working Group's goal is to create diversity in its content by covering various panels and background experiences. Book reviews, and other reviews of resources are welcome. We shall attempt to give various voices a chance to speak; teachers, retired teacher, administrators, other educational professionals. We will attempt to give coverage to various regions.

6. Responses from our readers

This is our 3rd e-Newsletter! We look forward to your critical reflections, contribution and comments.

Co-editor and web designer: Jennifer Jilks-Racine | Co-editors: Evelyn Steinberg | Margaret Skinner

7. Related links

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8. For Sale: Conference Handbook Kits From Ontario ASCD's October 2003 International Conference

The Art and Soul of Teaching: An International Conference Supporting Communities That Learn

$35.00 Each Plus Mailing Fee. Send an E-mail to: Mary Nanavati, Past President - marynan@idirect.com  

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