Celebrate the Year

We’re quickly approaching the time of year when resolutions are set and we put what we want to do better at the top of our list. How often, though, do we invest as much thought in celebrating all of the things we’ve done well over the past year? In these few days before the Holiday break, help your students celebrate their growth and achievements in the past year (or semester!). Think of the good deeds you’ve witnessed, the improvement in grades, all of the effort that went into that “ah-ha!”, the positive outlook… Follow this link to a template you can print off and jot a quick note to individual students.

Leadership Development Tip for December 22, 2008

Adding Artwork to Your Materials

Clip art was so 1990. Okay, so maybe it has its purpose now and again, but the next time you need artwork to help solidify a point or illustrate a concept, check out Pics4Learning. It’s a website created just for teachers and students.

Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers and amateur photographers. Unlike many Internet sites, permission has been granted for teachers and students to use all of the images donated to the Pics4Learning collection.

If you have your own collection of photos with educational merit, upload them here so others can enjoy them too.

Other image bank sites for teachers:
· Civil War
· Depression Era
· EduPic
· Maps
· NASA Image eXchange
· Roosevelt Presidential Library

· US Air Force
· US Fish and Wildlife Service
· US Navy Images

Classroom Engagement Tip for December 22, 2008

Ready for Resolutions

Tis the season to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Here’s a great You Tube video we found to get you in the mood.






While the video suggest forgetting resolutions, we think they provide a great opportunity o promote leadership development with your students. Here’s an idea we brainstormed:

Announce during class that New Year’s is around the corner and that part of your tradition (at least starting this year) is to have each class come to a consensus about a New Year’s Resolution. Here are the rules:
- The resolution must increase positive behavior that can be applied in this class
- Everyone in the class must support the resolution
- The resolution must be realistic

Use the opportunity to teach about how to build consensus and work together in accomplishing a common goal.

Once the resolution is settled, write it down and post in the room for all to see. Your task is to help hold the group accountable through the weeks and months of the new year. Each time you reference the resolution they made use the opportunity to speak about the importance of follow-through and commitment to excellence; all traits of effective leaders.

Leadership Development tip for the week of December 15, 2008

Getting All Students to Think About College

A great resource website is up and running, KnowHow2Go.org, and it effectively and clearly lays out the case for going to college. You should take a few minutes yourself to review some of the facts and tips (especially the ones for mentors).

Teachers often think most students have already had someone talk about preparing for college with them. That may be true for some, but likely there are many others who are under-informed to make good planning decisions.

Remember, it’s not just preparing for a 4-year college or university. Many of today’s most in-demand jobs require degrees from community colleges and technical schools and the preparation for going to these schools is nearly the same.

Here are a few ideas for sharing this website:

1. Use as a discussion following a quiz or test
Take 5-10 minutes during class to project the website using an LCD projector. Explain how your class is helping them prepare for both college and a future career. Encourage students to write down the site address and to ask questions about preparing for college.

2. Post a link with description on your webpage
Many of you have a webpage on your school’s site. On your page add a note about the importance of college for all careers and post a link to the KnowHow2Go website.

3. Add a link to your email signature
Your email signature likely includes your contact information and might include a favorite quote of the school’s mission statement. If you’re allowed (check your IT policies) add a link to the KnowHow2Go website with a statement encouraging everyone to check it out.

4. Include in notes and progress reports home to parents
Use communication to parents as an opportunity to help them prepare their students for life after school, too. Share the website address and tell them about the great resources available on the site.

5. Provide “prizes” to students who look up the site on their own time
For fun, take time to make a virtual scavenger hunt using the site. Challenge students to find all the information on the website. When students have found all the information provide prizes of pencils, stickers, etc.

Resources like this website are excellent ways to help students help themselves in their college and career planning.

Career Development tip for the week of December 15, 2008

Inviting Students to Be Active Learners

Last week I read an interesting article about learner engagement. The author drew a strong distinction between just "showing up" and truly "active" learning. I have to admit this article like any other on the topic struck a cord with me.

(Allow me a moment on my soapbox...) All too often we mistake simply "showing up and going through the motions" as real engagement. It reminded me of an article I wrote about how to create active learning. You can check it out here: Inviting Students to the Active Learning Process. I wrote the article to agricultural educators (I must admit... I am one!), but I think the underlying principles "stick" in any classroom. If you're a skimmer, like me, then you may want to skip the intro (nice academic background stuff...) and head on over to the third column on the first page. Start reading after the sub-heading there and I think you'll find the most useful information on pages 2 and 3. Enjoy!

Professional Development Tip for 12.3.08

Smart Art is Your Friend

You’ve heard the mantra of graphic and advance organizers for years. Quit wasting your time drawing them by hand! Open up an Office 2007 program, choose INSERT and click on SMARTART. Choose the graphic that meets your needs, enter your information, play with the colors or the layout and you have a beautiful graphic organizer! Below are a just two examples.


Want some more resources on creating effective advance organizers? Check out these sites:

• Ausubel's Theory - Ausubel originally proposed advance organizers as an instructional tool.
• Example Advance Organizers - A great page with a few easy to use examples!

Classroom Engagement Tip for 12.3.08

rubistar

I have a love hate relationship with rubrics. I love that they provide students with guidance, clear criteria and demonstrate the type of evidence I’m looking for in a project. I hate making them. I love that I can transfer responsibility for learning by answering most questions with a simple, “check your rubric.” I hate that rubrics take me forever to write. I love that the quality of projects usually increases when I’ve written a good rubric. I hate that, even if I write a good rubric, I have to spend adequate time and effort training my students on the rubric before they “get it.”

A rubric ensures that a project supports your learning objectives by defining the criteria students will be evaluated on and listing the evidence that is to be produced for each criteria.

If you have a favorite rubric resource, please share in a comment for the rest of us! One of my favorites (which is free) is rubistar. Rubistar allows you to find, create and share rubrics. You can search examples or browse by subject area. If your project needs a little spicing up, you can visit the inspiration page for help.

When creating a rubric on rubistar, you don’t have to start with a blank slate. The site helps you find a similar, customizable rubric to help you start. Here’s the beauty: there are drop down menus of criteria choose from (or you can enter your own). There are also presets for the evidence columns and you can choose how you want to weight each criteria. When you’re finished, you can save, print and go!

Classroom Engagement Tip for November 10, 2008

It's Up and Running

In April, we released the book Strategies to Integrate NOW, a desktop reference to help career and technical education teachers who want to be more purposeful as they integrate academics in CTE courses. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Simple, effective strategies to approach integration
• Provides ideas for quick, limited use or for full-scale efforts
• Suggests practical ways to Prepare, Plan, Deliver and Assess
• Easy-to-read - great for individual use or with teams/groups/PLCs
• Supplement efforts already underway with additional ideas and strategies

The book and strategies have really caught on and we’ve had great response with our professional development sessions around the country.

We’re happy to announce that the website supplement to the book is now up and running! The site has free customizable templates, excerpts from the book, example integration plans and more. Visit for yourself and tell us what you think!

Career Development Tip for November 10, 2008

Storyboarding to Build Understanding

The next time you deliver a lecture or assign students to read a long passage, encourage them take notes using a storyboard format. A storyboard is a timeline of events that are visually displayed for use in movies, commercials and animations. Storyboarding notes during the lecture or while reading involves the students creating a series of frames with images to represent a sequence of events or topics. Under each frame students should place a caption that describes the particular event in the sequence. The storyboarding process will encourage students to meta-cognitively process the information in the lecture and/or passage. The following shows an example of storyboarding a basic photosynthesis process.


Tips for success with storyboarding:

• If this is the first time you have students take “notes” in this way demonstrate what you expect them to do for the first few frames by showing them an examples.
• If this is the first time that students are learning the content make sure to share the number of “frames” students should have in their storyboard. This will help scaffold their understanding as they complete the task.
• This approach works especially well when the content of the lecture or passage is a process or procedure.
• If you use this technique with a lecture pause intermittently throughout the lecture to let students capture the information in a frame.

Classroom Engagement Tip for 10.31.08

High Demand Jobs

Have you ever wondered what jobs are in highest demand in today’s labor market? Afterall we are preparing students for careers and life after school. What opportunities are out there for them after they have a diploma or complete some form of post-secondary training? Career Voyages, a partnership between the Department of Labor and the Department of Education is a unique website designed to help students explore careers in a number of high growth industries.

According to their Web site the following are today’s highest growth industries:

• Advanced Manufacturing
• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Construction
• Education
• Energy
• Health Care
• Homeland Security
• Hospitality
• Information Technology
• Retail
• Transportation

Emerging industries include: Biotechnology, Geospatial Technology and Nanotechnology. If you’re like me you are probably wondering what a couple of those even mean! Check out the Career Voyages Web site it’s well organized and provides a number of resources to help both you and your students understand opportunities in these high growth and emerging industries.

Career Development Tip for 10.31.08

Who’s On First – A Quick Communication Activity

Employers continue to cite communication as an important skill for successful careers. Consider using this short 10-minute activity to begin a discussion about effective communication in your classroom or during a student organization meeting. To prepare, ask two students to read through the script prior to the class or meeting. As you select students to act out the story remind them that practice, enthusiasm and careful enunciation are important for success. Have the two students read the following script and then ask them the debrief questions that follow.

Script for Activity:

• Abbott: Alright, now whaddya want?
• Costello: Now look, I’m the head of the sports department. I got know the baseball players’ names. Do you know the guys’ names?
• Abbott: Oh sure.
• Costello: So you go ahead and tell me some of their names.
• Abbott: We have Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third.
• Costello: That’s what I wanna find out.
• Abbott: I say Who’s on First, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third.
• Costello: You know the fellows’ names?
• Abbott: Certainly!
• Costello: Well then who’s on first?
• Abbott: Yes!
• Costello: I mean the fellow’s name!
• Abbott: Who!
• Costello: The guy on first!
• Abbott: Who!
• Costello: The first baseman!
• Abbott: Who!
• Costello: The guy playing first!
• Abbott: Who is on first!
• Costello: Now whaddya askin’ me for?
• Abbott: I’m telling you Who is on first!
• Costello: Well, I’m asking YOU who’s on first!
• Abbott: That’s the man’s name.
• Costello: That’s who’s name?
• Abbott: Yes.
• Costello: Well go ahead and tell me.
• Abbott: Who.
• Costello: The guy on first.
• Abbott: Who!
• Costello: The first baseman.
• Abbott: Who is on first!

Debrief Questions:

• What happened?
• What was the source of the confusion?
• Where do you see this kind of communication confusion in real life?
• Based upon this experience, what can we do to improve our communication with others?

Leadership Development Tip for 10.31.08

Do You Know Your Targets??

Last week we exhibited at the National Career Pathways Network Conference in Cincinnati Ohio. The booth across from us happened to be the International Center for Leadership in Education. You may be more familiar with this group due to their founder and CEO, Willard Daggett. Mr. Daggett has been a champion for improving rigor, relevance and relationships in our schools. We, of course, share a passion for making classrooms and learning meaningful and relevant to students’ futures. Throughout the course of the conference, we learned about a neat resource offered by this group – the Curriculum Matrix.

The Curriculum Matrix assigns a priority rating to each state standard in English, math, and science based on the emphasis given to that standard on state tests. Standards are also crosswalked to the Essential Skills study, which ranks the importance of curriculum content in the subjects relative to what graduates need for success in adult life. The International Center uses education experts in each state to assist in creating the Curriculum Matrix.

In their book, Strategies to Integrate Now! authors Seth Derner and Dr. Jack Elliot discuss the importance of locating, in writing, a clear list of the academic standards/ benchmarks as a first step in making meaningful real-world connections in either a Career and Technical Education or Academic classroom. The Curriculum Matrix does this well! It’s a resource to consider having at the school or district level to guide curriculum and instructional decisions and priorities. This kind of resource is one tool to help ensure that schools and teachers don’t have to lose their vision of a complete education to the practice of “teaching to the test.”

Professional Development Tip for 10.31.08

Consider Benefits

Not many high school or summer jobs include benefits such as insurance, 401k, flex time, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation and sick leave. It seems natural then that students may overlook these items when considering where to apply or accept a position. As a teacher, you know that not only do different districts have different pay scales, but there are also differences in benefits offered. In the corporate world, it varies even more. Check out this quick video on working for Google and you’ll see what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6h-gm01Fb0

Hold a class discussion on benefits. Share standard benefits to look for and some of the perks available as well. The following site has a nice list to get you started:
http://www.career-resumes.com/blog/category/job-benefits/.

Career Development Tip for October 23, 2008

Company Visions Activity

Last week’s posting included a tip on personal branding. It reminded me of a fun activity on visioning we put together for a youth leadership conference. The activity had students match vision statements to familiar companies. It led into a discussion on a vision for their leadership teams. If you’re not familiar with the concept of vision statements, they are essentially a collaboratively developed statement that expresses where an individual, organization or company wants to be within a certain time period.

I think a small version of the activity would be a great bell work activity and/or could be used to tie in your school’s vision, your vision for your classes or to help students develop a vision for the semester/year.



Here's a few to get you started:

Leadership Development Tip for October 23, 2008

Google Docs

There is a lot of emphasis placed on teachers working as teams: team teaching, small learning community teams, Professional Learning Communities, department teams, etc.. I buy into the concept 100%, but feel like I speak for many when I say, “it does require extra time and effort.” Without a common prep period or extra time after school, it makes it difficult to collaborate. Our friends at Google get it. While they can’t fix everything (yet) they do have a few tools that can make our lives easier. One such tool is Google Docs. In its simplest form, Google Docs allows groups to share all sorts or documents (including spreadsheets and presentations) and track changes. It eliminates the need to send attachments back and forth, passing around thumb drives and the guessing game of which version is the current version.

Common Craft does an excellent job of explaining Google Docs in less than three minutes. Check it out! Share it with your teams! It’s easy and secure.

I’ve already heard of one team using it to track student discipline issues and parent contacts. When a teacher needs to document a parent or student interaction, they log into the team and create a document with the students name (if it doesn’t already exist) and add a short description of the interaction. This helps everyone on the team stay informed of the student’s progress and behavior in other classes and serves as great documentation when meeting with parents.

Professional Development Tip for October 23, 2008

Genius Playlist

My husband and I are the world’s worst “name that tune” or artist players. It’s not that we don’t like music, it’s just that we don’t remember the names of songs, artists, movies, actors or actresses. It’s not the worst handicap to have, but considering my students lived and breathed music, I was certainly out of the loop. I liked to play a little music in the classroom when appropriate, but making a playlist wasn’t my favorite task.

Now, i-tunes is making it easy with their Genius feature. Choose any song, click on the Genius playlist button and voila! Genius sorts through your music and creates a playlist of as many similar style songs as you wish.

Classroom Engagement Tip for October 23, 2008

What’s your brand?

“The tiny, spontaneous, human act has enormous power.” Tom Peters

About ten years ago, Tom Peters lit a fire in the business world around a concept called personal branding. As commonplace as the idea seems today, how do we best prepare our students to be “branded” as they enter the workforce?

Guide your students through an exercise in identifying their brand and then creating an action plan to “be the brand.” To start the conversation, ask them what they know about company brands (Apple, Nike, Toyota, Target, etc.). What does a brand do for a company? Why does a company want to have a great brand? Share the point that, similar to a large company working to make a strong identity in the marketplace, each of us needs to establish a personal brand to help us stand out and get ahead in the workplace. Personal brands don’t involve logos and traditional advertising. Personal brands are all about how you’re perceived – what value do you bring to an employer (or the school, your group of close friends, the activities you’re involved in)?

To help students begin the process of identifying their brand, have them read the following except from Tom Peter’s Fast Company article from the late 1990’s:

“The…important thing to remember about your personal visibility campaign is: it all matters. When you're promoting brand You, everything you do -- and everything you choose not to do -- communicates the value and character of the brand. Everything from the way you handle phone conversations to the email messages you send to the way you conduct business...is part of the larger message you're sending about your brand.”

After they’ve read it and you’ve had a chance to discuss their take on its meaning, have them spend some time answering questions that lead them further down the road to identifying what they want to be known for.
*In terms of my work and ethic, what do I want to be famous for?
*What value to I bring to the groups I’m a part of? Do I follow through on my promises? Do I solve problems as situations arise? Can people count on me to help them? Do I spend money wisely and within my means?
*What have I accomplished that I am very proud of?
*Who do I admire most? What can I learn from that person’s work ethic that I can learn to do in my own life?

Have students condense their thoughts into once or two sentences. What do I want to be known for? This may be a struggle. A few prompts that may help make the process easier:
*I am all about…
*When people work with me, they will be struck by my ability to consistently…
*If someone were to describe my brand, they would say I am…

Finally, have them create an action plan. This can be as formal or informal as you’d like it to be. The whole point is that students are identifying ways they can build their personal brand as they prepare to enter the workforce. Here are a few questions that may help guide the action plan creation process: Out of the ideas you’ve listed, what do you most want to focus on developing? What do you need to be more purposeful about sharing with others? If you are able to be the brand they’ve described, what positive effects will it have on their workplace? On you personally?

Leadership Development Tip for October 20, 2008

The Countdown is On!

Here’s a great tool to help keep your students on track during self-paced or group work time. Countdown Clock allows you to post the time remaining during reviews, group discussions, lab processing, research…you get the idea. The clock can function either on your computer’s desktop or you can integrate it right into your PowerPoint presentations. Download a free-trial here.

Classroom Engagement Tip for October 20, 2008

Tools of the Trade

Get your students’ minds buzzing with opportunities for their futures! Gather tools and instruments (either actual objects or pictures of them) that are used in a wide variety of professions. Possible tools could be a tripod, a hammer, a stethoscope, a utility knife, a scientific calculator, a canvas, a cardboard box and an electronic writing pad. Challenge students to come up with at least two professions that employ the use of that instrument on a routine basis and then describe what the tool is used for. When the list is complete, have them identify which career they are most likely to pursue, which they are curious about and which they are least likely to pursue. If you have the time, they can also detail their reasoning behind those choices.

To put a twist on the activity, have all of the tools you select relate to professions within your academic area. An easy way to draw the connection to how relevant your class actually is to your students’ futures!
Career Development Tip for October 20, 2008

The Strengths Philosophy – What’s Right with You?

DO NOT TRY TO BE SOMEONE ELSE. STRIVE TO BE THE PERSON YOU REALLY ARE – FULLY AND COMPLETELY. THIS IS YOUR BEST AVENUE TO ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE. – Chip Anderson

What would happen if the world focused on what’s right with everyone instead of trying to fix each others’ weaknesses? Can you imagine all the great things that would happen? Dr. Don Clifton started a movement in psychology about 50 years ago called Strengths Psychology. The whole premise of the movement centers on research that proves “we have several times more potential for growth when we invest energy in developing our strengths instead of correcting our deficiencies.”

A great tool that Clifton developed in his quest to help people understand their talents and strengths is an assessment called StrengthsFinder®. Not only is it an interesting experience to learn about what our top talents are (since most of us struggle to identify what we do well!), but there is real application provided so that we learn to recognize what we do well and repeat personal success more often. Instead of being good at what we do, let’s use our talents purposefully to be great!

The assessment can be purchased (yes, it is worth every penny) and taken here.

Once you learn about and embrace the strengths philosophy, you may want the rest of the world to learn about it, too. If you’d like to help others see what’s right with them, check out the StrengthsQuest® website under the “Educator Resources” tab. There’s a ton of information (including research and case studies on why this psychology works) for you to learn more, incorporate the concepts into your classroom or sports team and reform your high school.

Other helpful resources for the education world that incorporate the strengths philosophy:
Teach with your Strengths
How Full is Your Bucket?
Vital Friends

References:
Rath, Tom. StrengthsFinder 2.0. Gallup Press. 2007.

Professional Development Tip for October 20, 2008

Seating Charts Made Simple

(Bless the folks at 3M, especially those who work in the Post-It division. I am a self-proclaimed office supply junkie, but here’s something to try even if you’re not!)
Supplies Needed:
- Colorful Sticky Tabs
- Fine Tip Permanent Marker
- Sheet Protector
- Paper

Directions:
1. Draw or print a map of the desks/tables in your classroom. Make sure desks or tables are larger than the tabs you’ve purchased.
2. Write each student’s name on a tab. (You can even color code here: say pink for girls and green for boys or blue for seniors and orange for juniors. Ohhh…the possibilities!)
3. Place the desk map in the sheet protector and start arranging the tabs.
4. Slip- the finished product in the scanner and you can project your new seating chart on the wall with your LCD projector.
5. Need to make a change? Pull the sticky off and place Sally up front (or in the hall!)

Here’s a sample:

(Will Post Soon!)



Professional Development Tip for October 9, 2008

Well Done, Target!

My younger sister attended her first college career fair this week. We enjoyed looking through the list of participating employers while searching for internships. Target® happened to be one of the companies exhibiting. Being a fan of the brand, I surfed on over to their careers site. Now, I like them even more. You must check it out for yourself and then send your students.
1. Go to www.target.com/careers
2. Click on Explore Careers in the left hand column
3. Choose a college major from the list
4. The site brings up a display of different Target employees. Click on any of them to hear more about what it is they do, how they came to work at Target and they’re description of Target’s culture.

I appreciate that clicking on a major brings up several people with a wide variety of careers and believe it’s useful for students to recognize there are a number of career pathways within each area.

Make it an assignment by having each student or group of students visit the site, choose a major and select the employee with the career they would most like to have.

Career Development Tip for October 9, 2008

Good Sheets

On a recent visit to Starbucks®, I picked up a cute mini-newspaper-looking thing (see below). My tea was much too hot to drink so I unfolded my discovery. I was delighted and immediately told my husband, “This is my next tip-of-week.”

Starbucks partnered with an existing magazine called GOOD to produce a series of GOOD Sheets (the mini-paper I picked up). GOOD Sheets are weekly series breaking down an important issue to help make sense of the world around us. As of today, there are four sheets: CO2 World, Bill of Health, Coming to America and Getting Gas. GOOD Sheets use visual/graphical representations of the issues and create a great centerpiece for conversation. Each sheet is available to view or print on-line.

Here are a few basic questions to get the discussion rolling:
- What surprises you?
- What did you find interesting?
- What did you already know?
- How does this affect your life?
- What other questions do you have about this topic?

Leadership Development Tip for October 9, 2008

Wordle

I think the Wordle site describes itself quite well:
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

You must visit www.Wordle.net and hit create to see just how easy it is to use. You can view the gallery to see recent “Wordles.” Below are some thoughts on how you might go about incorporating Wordle in the classroom:

- Copy and paste your notes or the pages of a text on your next topic to produce a Wordle. Show it to class and ask them what they think the next chapter might be about based on the words they see.
- Have students create Wordles using articles or text from on-line sources and compare them to the sources their classmates choose. How are they are similar and different?
- Have students create a Wordle using the text from a daily newspaper and use it to discuss current events.

Classroom Engagement Tip for October 9, 2008

Personal Growth Plan Template

How will you help your students grow the skills necessary for positively leading and influencing others? While conferences and one-time leadership experiences provide a springboard for student growth and development they do not suffice as the only growth experience prepare your students with the skills they need to lead and influence in the 21st century. Meaningful growth and improvement happens over time – not in one or two days!
This post offers a basic personal growth plan template to use with your students. Here’s how to use it effectively:

1. Offer students a meaningful leadership experience. This may be achieved through a service-learning event, participating in a workshop/seminar, participation in a student organization, etc.
2. After students complete an experience encourage them to reflect and identify areas for growth.
3. Provide students with a copy of the personal growth plan template and work with them to complete the template.
4. Mentor and meet with the student as they work to achieve the goals stated in their plan.

Download the free template!

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. – Conrad Hilton, Hotel Executive.
Leadership Development Tip for 10.2.08

Free! Career Exploration Resources Web Quest

I recently completed a Web design course. I learned a couple things: a) it’s not as hard as the Webmaster I used to work with made it sound and b) I wish I had learned a little Web design in my preparation to be a teacher! The Web with, in all its media and resource rich glory, is a tremendous resource to help students explore careers.

One of my class projects involved creating a Web Quest. For my project, I married my interests in career development with my new found Web development skills and viola’ I produced my very first Web Quest on Career Exploration Resources. I thought I would share the Web Quest as a free resource for your career development toolbox. The activity may last for a 50 minute class period or you may want to provide this as an ongoing project that is due at the end of a unit. (It’s always nice to have meaningful material to engage students if they finish early on other classroom activities and assignments.)

The content for the Web Quest was inspired by Relevant Classroom’s very own middle school career exploration curriculum – Engage! During the development our team found a number of great resources to help students in their career exploration efforts. This Web quest and a number of other resources are all included in the Engage! CD-ROM.

If the link above does not work you may access the Web Quest at: http://web.missouri.edu/~dpk392/miniproject3/career_web_quest.html

Career Development Tip for 10.2.08

Read This! Doing School by Denise Clark Pope

As I finished up my masters degree last year I took a class on motivation. It was fascinating how the class influenced my view of student motivation – or why students behave the way they do in the context of school. I went in with a certain view of what a “motivated” student looks like – interested, prepared, always engaged in class conversations, gets good grades, etc. I came away with a different way of looking at motivation in schools. The most important principle I learned – all students are motivated, they simply may not be motivated to do what you expect.

If you are even the slightest bit interested in what motivates your students I encourage you to read Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students by Denise Clark Pope. (For a quick taste of the book check out this Q and A with the author.) The book tells the stories of five high school students – each with very different motives and approaches to “achievement.” I could see some of the students I’ve worked with over the years in the characters described on the pages of this book. If you read it, I’m guessing you will too. In fact, the students in this book were likely in your class today. I wouldn’t call it just a “good to read” it’s an “essential to read” for educators. This book offers a great reminder about what we we’re called to do – help young people learn – plain and simple. It seems to me that an unbalanced focus on anything else (grades, test outcomes, awards, etc.) creates the potential for the phenomenon Denise Clark Pope calls “doing school.” Find a copy today!

Professional Development Tip for 10.2.08

Priming Students for Learning

Have you ever heard someone say, “Let me give you a little context.” Setting context is something we do on a daily basis as we engage in conversations with others. You tell a little of the background or at least express where you are headed in the conversation. It gives us mental pegs to understand where a conversation is coming from or where it is headed. How do you “set context” to prime students in your classroom? Here are a few tips for setting context effectively:

Setting context in a learning environment means that we put a “frame” around the learning event at hand. Just like a frame around a painting helps to focus our attention on the picture, setting context is a way of focusing student attention on what you want them to notice and/or do during the learning event without giving away the “punch line.” As you set context let students know what they should be thinking, feeling, and/or doing with their body to achieve the desired result. Remember this, if you don’t set context – they will! When they set the context, they may not focus their attention on the same things you hoped they would. The end result? You have to go back and re-explain what they “should have noticed.” Here are some examples of what “setting context” might sound like:

• In this short video you’ll see the photosynthesis process come to life. We’ve studied the process, now let’s see how the process works in the real-world. Grab a pen and your notes on the process. Follow-along in the video and when you notice a step in the process is complete, check if off in your notebook. After we finish the video you will use the examples to answer a few questions on a quick quiz – sit up, lean in and let’s get started.
• As you complete the scenario provided pay close attention to what it takes to be successful.
• Think about a time when you struggled to bring a group of people together to accomplish a goal. Jot that experience down on a sticky-note and keep it nearby. The next few moments will reveal two fail-proof strategies for rallying people around a common goal. As you listen to the strategies think about how you could have employed them in your own situation. Be prepared to respond with your example.
  

Classroom Engagement Tip for 10.2.08

Pass It On!

As I was driving home from the airport the other day, a very cool billboard caught my eye. The image was simple – members of a little league team sitting in the dugout cheering on their team with the phrase, “Unity: Pass It On” written in the bottom corner. By now, you have likely seen these billboards near your community too. They are the work of a group called The Foundation for a Better Life.

The nationwide billboard campaign launched in 2001 and has grown ever since. Today, there are “Pass It On” messages on the Internet, Television, in Theaters and now available through Podcasts. The Foundation’s mission is simple – “to encourage adherence to a set of quality values through personal accountability and by raising the level of expectations of performance for all individuals.” (The Foundation for a Better Life Web site).

Strong values and leadership go hand-in-hand. Here are some simple ways you can “pass it on” in your classroom:

• Choose a value per week or month. During that period introduce the value, what it means and identify real-world examples of people who embody that particular value.
• Send students on a mission to notice a certain value in themselves, their classmates, the school and the surrounding community. During bell-work, have students share where they’ve noticed the value displayed. Encourage students to identify ways they can embody the value too.
• Reward individual students when you notice them demonstrating a particular value. Make sure you label the value for them and highlight the example publicly to providing a learning opportunity for all students.
• Have students listen to a Podcast on one of the values highlighted at http://www.forbetterlife.org/be-inspired/podcasts.asp Then ask students to choose a value and create their own pod- or vod-cast about the value. There are a number of free resources available to help them begin on The Foundation for a Better Life Web site.

Inspire your students to pass it on!

Leadership Development Tip for 9.25.08

Piecing Together a Career Portfolio

Developing and maintaining a professional portfolio is a useful experience for students as they begin their careers.

A career exploration portfolio is a “beginning” version of the student’s professional portfolio. A career exploration portfolio should help students actively reflect upon their career exploration as it unfolds throughout middle and high school. In addition, a career exploration portfolio should help students practice the same skills associated with the creation and use of a professional portfolio. Here are four easy steps to help you guide students in setting up a career exploration portfolio:

Step 1: Outline the criteria for a career exploration portfolio. Some criteria we suggest:
1. Store your artifacts in a common location. Some places to call "home" include:

• A file folder
• An electronic file folder on the student’s school workspace
• A Web page created by the student to host the files
• A three-ring binder with sheet protectors and dividers

2. Include up to 6 artifacts that show others:

• …your current career interests and,
• …relevant skills you have that will help you be successful in a career.

3. Include a paragraph about each item that summarizes:

• What is the item?
• Why did you select the item for your portfolio?
• How did you improve the item before including it in the portfolio?

Step 2: Help students select artifacts to include in a career exploration portfolio. Some potential artifacts to create and include are:

• Personal Mission Statement
• Presentation about a Career Cluster that interests you
• 6-8 year career and education plan
• Results from a career interest inventory
• A journal entry or reflection on career interest inventory results
• A self-rating sheet showing how you rate yourself on career skills with a paragraph reflecting on how you have grown since you completed the self-rating sheet.
• Picture or map of the local community showing where the 16 career clusters are found locally
• Summary of an interview with an individual who has a career that interests you

Step 3: Have students create the portfolio, evaluate the artifacts and then present it for assessment. For example, you may have students present their portfolio to their parents, a counselor or an adult mentor. Use this as an opportunity to continue the conversation between the student and parents about the student’s interests, desires and plans.

It's that easy! Engage your students in starting a career exploration portfolio today!

Are you looking for more career exploration resources? Our middle school career exploration curriculum, Engage!, offers a project based approach to career exploration. In fact, the project described here is adapted from the detailed plan included in Engage! For more information check out Engage! at www.relevantclassroom.com.

Career Development Tip for 9.25.08

Readability Matters!

Have you ever paused to assess the reading level for materials in your classroom?

As our team creates educational materials, one thing we keep in mind is reading level. Readability describes the ease with which a passage or document can be read. Selecting and/or preparing materials that are written at an appropriate reading level is one way to differentiate instruction to “meet students where they are at” when they enter your classroom. The bottom line – matching the reading level of texts in your classroom to your students promotes understanding and learning. (Click here to check out the most current research on readability.)

You may be asking yourself, “How do I assess reading level?” Most classroom textbook publishers will identify the reading level in either the teacher’s manual for the textbook or the introductory section of the textbook itself. You can also contact the publisher or go-online and find readability information for most textbooks.

If you develop materials for your classroom (i.e. tests, scenarios, etc.) you likely have a readability statistic readily available. Modern versions of Microsoft Word® will produce a readability check as you conduct the built in spelling and grammar check on your document. Word™ provides you with the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level . This scale roughly translates to the number of years of education generally required to understand the text. You must find and activate this feature. In Word 2007, you can turn it on by completing the following:

• Select the “Office” button in the top left corner of your screen >
• Go to Word Options >
• Select “Proofing” from the menu on the left >
• Check the box next to “Show readability statistics on the Proofing Options page.
• Now, run a spelling check on the document. You will receive a box showing readability statistics for the document.
• To set this feature up in previous versions of Word™ simply go to help and search for “readability.”

Curious about the reading level of this posting? This posting is written between a 9^th and 10^th grade reading level. Start checking the reading level of materials you use in your classroom today. We bet you will be surprised!

Professional Development Tip for 9.25.08