Dr. Louis' Blog

By Deborah E. Louis, Ph.D.

With technology and especially online learning, the idea of competency-based education is a viable option and may be best used in a blended learning environment. Blended learning is an idea that may offer more time for teachers to provide continuous and effective assessment, but it does not address the challenge of students having different skill levels and, therefore, different levels of progression. What does address this challenge is Competency-based Learning (CBL).  And the combination of CBL and Blended Learning is a dynamic duo to student learning.

The traditionalist attitude continues to demonstrate an affinity toward the early 20^th century basis for measuring school work known as the Carnegie Unit system. A unit would represent a single subject taught for one classroom period for five days a week. Thus, the Carnegie Unit equates seat-time with learning. The traditional length of the typical class period (50 to 55 minutes), the school day, and the school year stem from the Carnegie Unit in an attempt to standardize and ensure the quality of high school education. In this traditional approach, teachers typically provide instruction to all students at the same time, and deadlines for assignments and projects apply to all students. Recently, in a brief titled “State Strategies for Awarding Credit to Support Student Learning by the National Governors Association (2012, p. 1), “a total of 36 states currently have policies that provide school districts and schools with some flexibility for awarding credit to students based on mastery of content and skills as opposed to seat time.” Reports like the one developed by the National Governors Association have encouraged other thought leaders to consider allowing time on task to be a variable and competencies of objectives to set the bar. This idea is an example of a new myth replacing the old. What has emerged is a concept among educators known as competency education. In “The Art and Science of Designing Competencies,” Chris Sturgis (2012, p.5) and innovators from across the country developed a working definition of competency education:

• students advance upon mastery;
• competencies include explicit, measurable, transferable learning objectives that empower students;
• assessment is meaningful and a positive learning experience for students;
• students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs; and
• learning outcomes emphasize competencies that include application and creation of knowledge along with the development of important skills and dispositions.

Also known as proficient-, standards-, and performance-based education, competency education allows students to learn objectives with time flexibility. Therefore, a student who understands and masters an objective or standard sooner than others may move forward. In addition to Competency-based instruction, blended learning, combining traditional teaching approaches with integrated technology, is a way for teachers to gain more time for personalized approaches to student learning. According to the Innosight Institute definition by Heather Staker and Michael Horn (2012, p. 3), blended learning may be defined as “a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace, and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home.” Four models of blended learning discussed by Staker and Horn (2012, p. 2) in “Classifying K-12 Blended” include the Rotation model, the Flex model, the Self-Blend model, and the Enriched-Virtual model. These new approaches to the ebb and flow of the classroom do not oppose traditional senex values; rather, they augment the teaching and learning in a way that allows the senex approach to have more meaning because the approach is more personalized.

The Rotation model, according to Staker and Horn (2012, p. 8), is a program in which “within a given course or subject students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion between learning modalities, at least one which is online learning. One example of the rotation model is the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom is a phrase coined by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, teachers with a combined 37 years of experience. It suggests that a teacher flip the common instructional approach.  Bill Tucker, in a 2012 article from Education Next discusses the concept: With teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in class is now accessed at home, in advance of class. Class becomes the place to work through problems, advance concepts, and engage in collaborative learning. Most importantly, all aspects of instruction can be rethought to best maximize the scarcest learning resource—time.

Other modalities might include teacher-led instruction, small, collaborative groups, individual conferences, or seat-time with pencil and paper. The location of these modalities might occur at stations within a classroom, different locations on a campus, a remote location (often home) after school, as explained in the flipped classroom approach, or in an individually customized fixed schedule in which students’ rotation may not include each station. Staker and Horn (2012, p. 12) describe a Flex model as a program in which students receive content from the Internet and move on an “individually customized, fluid schedule” with the teacher-of-record on site and accessible. A Self-Blend model is one in which students may select to take certain courses online with the teacher-of-record being an online teacher. Finally, Staker and Horn (2012, p. 15) describe an Enriched-Virtual model as a “whole-school experience in which within each course (e.g., math), students divide their time between attending a brick-and-mortar campus and learning remotely using online delivery of content and instruction, adding that the “Enriched-Virtual model differs from the Flipped Classroom because in Enriched-Virtual programs, students seldom attend the brick-and-mortar campus every weekday.  It differs from the Self-Blend model because it is a whole-school experience, not a course-by-course model.” In a blended learning environment, teachers have more opportunity to approach their students’ learning of skills and concepts by providing lessons, units, or projects that may be completed by the individual in an online setting, in small, collaborative groups, in teacher-led instruction, and/or a combination of the three. Teachers guide, supervise, monitor, and assess the mastery of standards-based skills and concepts on a continuum; students are not slowed or accelerated by time but rather by their ability to understand, apply, analyze, and synthesize. Students are not labeled as needing remediation or enrichment.  Their performance outcomes on specific standards guide those decisions.

Some teachers worry that using online approaches that blended learning encompass will replace the role of teacher, but the blended learning environment as well as CBL promotes and requires supervision of students’ learning, as Richard E. Ferdig (Davis, 2011, p. 38), a research professor at the Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, has indicated, that “incorporating the face-to-face mentor into students’ use of online courses is directly linked to success.”  Teachers can never be replaced with regard to effective learning. The Teacher is an archetype, a dynamic figure in our collective unconscious. And the student-teacher connection is also an archetype.  Any time I ask a student about naming the one thing that had the most impact, the answer is always “My teachers.”  It’s true and will always be true.

With a combination of CBL, personalized instruction, and digital tools that include blended learning, portable and mobile learning, and computer-based instruction, students are engaged and teachers have the time to plan, create, grade, and tutor, and less time on behavioral problems and parent phone calls. If students are engaged, dropouts by students and their teachers might also decrease.

Sometimes, people send me emails from Jane that I like to share--they are treasures, nuggets. I'm calling this series Jane's Diction. What is so special about the following words by Jane is that they are from an email that she sent to her daughter Sarah in 1997. Sarah is also a teacher, and I asked Sarah to share some of her mother's words with us.

So, as you are preparing for the last day of school and looking forward to the first day of summer break, take care of yourself. You need much deserved rest. Then, reflection. Then, rejuvenation . . . . In the meantime, here are some of Jane's words to you and for you. She was completely dedicated to her family, kids, and devoted teachers. Enjoy.

Friday, December 5, 1997. . . you must always study what you love because it must carry you for a lifetime.

Teaching has been that for me.  Every day is different, some better than others, always rewarding to talk to kids.  My juniors are getting grammar better this year because I think I am doing a better job teaching it this time around.  Bertrand Russell wrote that his desire to allay fear and pain (rough paraphrase) was one of the things that drove him through life--not a bad goal to have.  The seniors are fearful about college admissions.  The freshmen are fearful that their voices will break in the middle of reading Of Mice and Men aloud in class.  The juniors are just plain fearful of me--I know I am a scary person on the outside--but they are wising up to the reality underneath.  My special Study Failure class is fascinating.  Now that I have my extra computer installed in my room with grades, book reports, and other stuff on it, they are more likely to drop by and sit in the chair I leave next to me to ask about their grades (a pretense in part) and just hang out.  One boy is leaving the class to enter drug rehab; he is probably one of the five brightest minds I've had in my career, and he thinks he hides his intelligence well.  I told him today that he couldn't hide it from me, and he gave me a hug.  It was a sweet moment.

All the good teachers I know and admire are Holden Caulfields.  They want to catch kids before they go over the cliff.  My teachers saved me in high school, and my passion is to do the same to my charges.  I have always told you:  the way to repay such a debt is to pass it on to the next generation.  It is the only legacy that counts.From Deborah: Remember, you matter a great deal to many people. You will never truly know the impact you have on those faces and those lives. Cherish the memories: good and bad. They all have meaning in your life. And from one teacher to another, thank you.Note: Please feel free to send me Jane's words to post.

Dear Dr. D',

The confusion I'm having now that you might be able to help me with has to do with how deep to have [my students] go on the WOW sheet in the bubbles. Some students seem to write phrases that tend to define the single CM words as opposed to considering the internal workings of the character (thoughts, feelings, beliefs) that make the character act the way she does.

Janice

‍

‍Dear Janice,

You are right; the students are not supposed to define the words in the first two spots to get the phrases for the clouds. But do not get frustrated, for commentary takes time and patience (from both of you).First, instead of calling them “bubbles,” I would like for you to call them “clouds,” and tell your students that the clouds represent lofty thoughts, not thoughts that can be found in a dictionary or thesaurus. They are called clouds because you can see them, but you cannot touch them. They are found in the sky, in the heavens, in the mind.I'm glad that you are starting to teach commentary using characters from literary works. Characterization is the best literary element to begin teaching commentary because it lends itself to asking the students to put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist or antagonist (as well as minor characters). We want students to delve deeply into the human condition--what makes us behave the way we behave; make the comments we make; act the way we act.  Ask them, "How would you feel if you were the character?" When they give you a one-word answer, say, "What do you mean by that?"For teachers, I like to introduce a little bit of Carl Gustav (C.G.) Jung here: C.G. Jung, a famous psychiatrist, depth psychologist, and student of Sigmund Freud, spent much of his life and career working with what he called the unconscious. You might have heard of the collective unconscious where the archetypes reside. Jung is famous for his study of the archetypes.  He also called the unconscious, the psyche. And you might find the etymology of that word interesting:

"psyche." n. 1 the soul; the spirit. 2 the mind. [L f. Gk psukhē breath, life, soul].

So, when we are talking commentary to the students, we are trying to teach them to go into that area of understanding and knowing of which Jung speaks. That's why teaching commentary is so difficult. We have to reach within ourselves and pull it out of those inner corners and crevices of our memories, dreams, and reflections about life. By the way, Jung's autobiography is titled Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

The best approach is to tell the students that commentary comes from three places: the head, the heart, and the gut. You cannot touch it like you can touch a table or rain or snow.  You cannot touch sadness, revenge, love, happiness, thoughtlessness, deceit, generosity. These latter words fall into the realm of commentary.

With the clouds, then, you ask the students to take one of the commentary words--let's say "thoughtlessness." Ask him, "What do you mean by thoughtlessness?"

"Well, Dr. Louis, the character thinks of no one but himself."

"Good, that's the definition of thoughtlessness. Now tell me what's going on inside of him that causes him to be like that? In other words, if you were he, what's going on inside of you?"

"Well, I don't want to get close to anyone."

"Good, write that in the cloud, but use the character's name. What else?"

"It's like he can't see or feel beyond himself."

"Good, write that in a second cloud. What else?"

"He's like an island unto himself, but it's sinking."

"Beautiful. Write that in a third cloud and take a nap for the rest of the period. Your brain is on overload!"

How Commentary Began (in Jane's words)

The missing piece, the “so what?” [commentary] was born one day during a one-to-one conference with a gifted junior. He was writing an essay in 1975 about how Lake Erie had changed since he had been a young boy living there. He brought his prewriting to the teacher at her desk. The teacher looked over the list of concrete details and told the boy to analyze his examples — pollution, dead fish, oil slicks on the beach, the fire when the Cuyahoga River burned. The teacher said, “These look good – now go analyze them.” The boy said, “I have no idea what you teachers mean by analyze.” This was a reasonable statement; he wanted to do the assignment but didn’t know how to begin or what it should look like when he was finished. Then the teacher asked him to say how the experience had changed or affected him. He thought for a few seconds and said, “I realized my past was lost. The cherished days of my childhood were ruined. The halcyon days were behind me.” The boy really said “halcyon.” Schaffer was speechless that a student knew the word and used it correctly. The teacher said, “You did it — what you said to me was analysis. And we’re going to call it commentary because you commented to me about your details.” It’s a far more user-friendly word for teenagers than analysis and interpretation. That day began a department conversation about what it means to analyze a topic and how to lead teenagers away from plot summary —the bane of English teachers’ existence — and toward deeper thought. Most teachers don’t remember how they learned to write. They often taught themselves and alone made the leap from plot summary to analysis. Some know a certain person who helped them, but most of us have no memory of the moment. We just did it.

That student’s reactions made us realize two points:

1. Talking is the missing link in thinking. Students can say what they are thinking but need help getting it down on paper.
2. We assumed far too much about both content and mechanics, and that has rung true ever since. We thought students knew about topic sentences and indentations and analysis, but we were wrong on every count. We like to think we’ve made unwarranted assumptions less frequently since then.

I've always loved the sentiment in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God that begins chapter three: "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." Commentary helps us to do both.

Keep writing (and reading)!

Warm regards,

Dr. D'

Works Cited

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. 1937. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

"psyche." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford UP: Norwalk, 1990. 964.

Dear Teachers,

For Teacher Appreciation Week, I thought I would share with you a document that one of my favorite English teachers gave me when I became a teacher.  My, how times have changed!

RULES FOR TEACHERS--1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.

1. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.

1. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

1. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

1. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

1. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

1. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

1. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.

1. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

They had me at chimneys . . .

I hope that your students know how hard you work to make their lives better! From one teacher to another, keep the faith! Happy Teacher Week.

Much love and admiration to you,

Dr. Dr'

This speech is from Jane's papers. It is in our nature as human beings to reminisce at times like this, and I am no exception.  I have a stern face but a soft heart, and  I would like to give you a glimpse of the days of our lives in the classroom.

It is a morning like any other morning.  Nathan wanders in late, mumbles his customary "I overslept," and consults with Jessica about the yearbook.  I'd be disappointed if he didn't.   I eavesdrop while I take roll--Megan hopes her cold will be gone by prom night; Elizabeth's cell phone rings; others are signing yearbooks, writing promises of eternal friendship.

From the deep reaches of the classroom, with Star Trek posters on one wall and another poster in front that says, "This isn't Burger King; you can't have it your way,"  I hear the usual chatter of children, but I'm reluctant to cut it off--for this moment is theirs.  It is the last day before summer, and they are seniors in high school.

Nevertheless, there were details to attend to--giving grade printouts, collecting textbooks, reviewing the graduation schedule.  Here was my final moment with them before they stepped out of my classroom into adulthood.  A teacher wonders just what difference she has made.  Even though Hamlet's decision was worlds away from theirs, will they ever think of him when vacillating between two points of action?  Will they remember Robert Frost's statement that "Home is the place where, when you have to go there/They have to take you in?" Will they think of Brave New World when they read about cloning human beings?

Some will be headed off to college, that crucible of growing up after the short space of summer to experience the magic of  emancipation.  They'll learn a few facts, but they will also learn that they can--go to classes or not go, without nagging, even without notice--eat anything, anytime, without cleaning up afterward --stay up all night, or stay in bed all day--wear the same socks for a month--fall in love and out of love,  all without criticism from parents.

Glorious freedom--they may even find it hurts.  They will learn that clothes don't wash themselves, that a steady diet of pizza is unsatisfactory, that love and life are more complicated than they imagined as the world lay before them.  I want to remind them of some old rules in life:  that everything has its cost, that two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead, that life is what happens when you have other plans. But I would feel a little foolish, like Polonius giving pompous advice to his son.

Teachers play many parts: counselor, parent, Dear Abby advice giver, social worker, coach.  We can be a difficult lot sometimes.  We are the bossiest people I know.  We all have the teacher voice.  We use it to order people around and get a paycheck for it.  We discipline other people's children in public: supermarkets, shopping malls, airplanes, amusement parks.  We figure it's our right and our obligation to humanity to do so.Every teacher knows that the saving grace in this job is the kids.   We deal with everything from the trivial to the traumatic, from "Can I borrow a pencil?" and "Is the cafeteria selling Arby's today?" to "I couldn't do my essay last night--Things aren't so good at home right now."  We hope our classrooms are an oasis in adolescence, islands filled with rigorous academics and relentless caring.   We stay in this profession because of a deep and abiding sense of commitment. I have tried to keep children safe and out of harm's way, to prevent their suffering and allay their fears.  My parents were both alcoholics--in a group this size, a good many of you also grew up in alcoholic homes--and so, high school was a refuge and a sanctuary for me.

My father was in the Navy, and I attended fourteen schools from kindergarten through college.  In high school, I discovered that my French teacher always came in early, and I hung out in her classroom each morning before first period.  Since my goal was not to go home until I had to, I joined the drama club, because drama kids never go home.  School gave me a safe haven when I needed one, and I have tried to repay the debt, to pay it forward, as a teacher.  Appreciation is a wonderful thing, for it makes what is good in others belong to us as well.

But now [. . .,] it's time for me to go.  To my students, past and present, you have been a joy to me for thirty-two years.  And to the seniors, I wish you that same joy in your life's work as I have found in mine.  I cannot imagine a more glorious or more rewarding way to go through this life. Thank you.

Dear Dr. D',

In the past, as 7^th grade teachers we have stuck with the one, two, or three-chunk JS single paragraphs. Last year as our students completed the SBAC, they were confused with questions that required them to compose a two-paragraph, or multi-paragraph essay. You mentioned in your last email to talk to them about “chunking,” but how does chunking look when you are adding more than one paragraph. About half of us in our English Department have never been formally trained in JS, so we are sort of piecing it together along the way.

Dear Carrie:

“Chunking” is specifically used with regard to paragraph development. Each paragraph in a multiparagraph essay may have one or more chunks (typically, any more than three chunks would beg for a new paragraph, so I like it that you are writing one to three chunks per paragraph). “Chunking” is a term used within a body paragraph. So, let’s say that a prompt asks the student to write a multiparagraph essay about the main character in a novel:

• Introduction
• Body Paragraph 1 (1 chunk)*:

• TS – Gives an attribute about the character (e.g. generous)
• CD – Evidence from the text (that shows his generosity - could be a paraphrase, but I train teachers to train their kids to embed quotes – higher scores)
• CM – How his generosity plays a major part in that part of the story
• CM – How his generosity relates to a theme in the piece, or maybe a statement of universal truth about generosity
• CS – tie the character’s attribute of generosity to the story, to the universal theme, and to the author’s purpose
• Body Paragraph 2 (2-chunk)

• TS - Another attribute about that character (gets taken advantage of)
• Evidence from the text (illustrates a situation in which he gets taken advantage of)
• CM
• CM+
• More evidence from the text (another situation in which he gets taken advantage of)
• CM
• CM+
• Concluding Sentence
• Body Paragraph 3 (another attribute)
• Body Paragraph 4 (another attribute)
• Conclusion

*Now, Carrie. I want to talk to you about the above listing of sentences, and I'm going to deal formally with this CONTROVERSY next week. Remember, Jane started this program to help kids no longer have to stare at a blank page or look up to us with that helpless look that we all hate to see in their little faces. We teach them that "Writing is Thinking." We train them at first to separate CDs from CMs (like above). We do that so that we can test their cognitive understanding of the difference between evidence (CD) and commentary (CM). We teach them to build upon each sentence, and as each student gains confidence, we'll say to that student, "Some sentences provide Concrete Details (CDs), some sentences provide Commentary (CMs), and some sentences (when we understand what we are doing and we have intention), contain both CDs and CMs (what Jane called WEAVING). You are ready to weave, young man or lady!"Therefore, what you are seeing above is where we begin -- where we are separating CDs from CMs to help the students understand that in a Response to Literature "chunk," the ratio that gets highest grades is 1:2+ (CD:CM). Translated, the 1:2+ ratio means, "Student, for every piece of evidence you give me, either as a paraphrase or an embedded quotation, I want at least two or more sentences of commentary."Once the students get comfortable with understanding the difference between CDs and CMs (and this can happen in middle school or high school, depending on the student), then we teach individual students to start combining their thoughts, and this can happen in all sorts of different ways:

• they might want to start with a CM idea and integrate a CD into that sentence;
• they might want to have several sentences of CM ideas first before they provide their evidence (CDs).

But with Response to Literature essay, a Literary Analysis, or a Rhetorical Analysis, we want more CMs. When we first start teaching, we require students to give us those CMs in sentences. When they are ready, we talk about WEAVING their thoughts and their evidence together. WEAVING goes beyond the strict, foundational structure. So a CHUNK helps students understand the ratio of combining their evidence with their opinions.I'll talk more about this next week when I talk about the misconception about Jane Schaffer being formulaic. Then, the following week, I'll talk about the various modes of discourse, and how those ratios change. In the meantime,Keep Writing (and Reading),Dr. D'