ASSETScope April 2008

What is a Professional Learning Community ?

……………………………………………………………in continuation from last issue, March 2008

Big Idea #3: A Culture of Collaboration
The powerful collaboration that characterizes professional learning communities is a
systematic process in which teachers work together to analyze and improve their classroom
practice. Teachers work in teams, engaging in an ongoing cycle of questions that promote deep team learning. This process, in turn, leads to higher levels of student achievement.

Collaborating for School Improvement
The author describes the teaching-learning process in one of the schools- The school’s five 3rd grade teachers study state and national standards, and student achievement data to identify the essential knowledge and skills that all students should learn in an upcoming language arts unit. They also ask the 4th grade teachers what they hope students will have mastered by the time they leave 3rd grade. On the basis of the shared knowledge generated by this joint study, the 3rd grade team agrees on the critical outcomes that they will make sure each student achieves during the unit.

Next, the team turns its attention to developing common formative assessments to monitor each student’s mastery of the essential outcomes. Team members discuss the most authentic and valid ways to assess student mastery. They set the standard for each skill or concept that each student must achieve to be deemed proficient. They agree on the criteria by which they will judge the quality of student work, and they practice applying those criteria until they can do so consistently. Finally, they decide when they will administer the assessments.

Collaborative conversations call on team members to make public what has traditionally been
private-goals, strategies, materials, pacing, questions, concerns, and results. These
discussions give every teacher someone to turn to and talk to, and they are explicitly structured to improve the classroom practice of teachers-individually and collectively.

For teachers to participate in such a powerful process, the school must ensure that everyone
belongs to a team that focuses on student learning. Each team must have time to meet
during the workday and throughout the school year. Teams must focus their efforts on crucial questions related to learning and generate products that reflect that focus, such as lists of essential outcomes, different kinds of assessment, analyses of student achievement, and strategies for improving results. Teams must develop norms or protocols to clarify
expectations regarding roles, responsibilities, and relationships among team members.
Teams must adopt student achievement goals linked with school and district goals.

Hard Work and Commitment
Even the grandest design eventually translates into hard work. The professional learning
community model is a grand design-a powerful new way of working together that profoundly
affects the practices of schooling. But initiating and sustaining the concept requires
hard work. It requires the school staff to focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively on matters related to learning, and hold itself accountable for the kind of results that fuel continual improvement.

Excerpt from” What is a Professional Learning community?” By Richard DuFour, Educational Leadership

News Bite

Corrective measures leads to absenteeism from exams in UP
India soon to make education a fundamental right: Minister
Spend 6 percent of GDP on education: Economic Survey
No bags for Chandigarh primary school children
Jharkhand offers money bait to check school dropout rate

Corrective measures leads to absenteeism from exams in UP

The revamping of the board examination system in Uttar Pradesh had an unexpected impact. Over 141,000 students of Class 10 and Class 12 have not taken their examinations as copying and use of unfair means was made difficult by the strict measures in place. Many students are said to have fled from the exam centres and have decided to take the exams next year. Copying during board exams is a sensitive issue in Uttar Pradesh.

India soon to make education a fundamental right: Minister

India will soon legislate a law to make education a fundamental right, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh said. He said a provision of free and compulsory education for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years has already been declared as a fundamental right in the constitution. Describing education as the most critical aspect of social development, Arjun Singh said the society couldn’t afford to leave it to the private players alone.

Spend 6 percent of GDP on education: Economic Survey

India needs to double its spending on education to six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to make primary education universal, the Economic Survey 2007-08 said. The survey said that with the rapid growth of the Indian economy, coupled with the need to improve quality of life and reduced poverty, skill development is essential in schools. With the increased demand for higher quality of education, training of teachers has become even more important and out of the box thinking is required to ensure adequate supply of quality teachers.

No bags for Chandigarh primary school children

Children studying in primary classes in government schools in Chandigarh will no longer have to carry a burden on their young shoulders. The Chandigarh administration’s education department has decided to do away with schoolbags and examinations for all students from Nursery to Class 2.’The focus will now be on activity based learning. Instead of examinations, They will have a grading system to evaluate students on their performance. They will not have to carry books in heavy schoolbags any longer.

Jharkhand offers money bait to check school dropout rate

Jharkhand’s ministry of resources development (HRD) has decided to give Jmonetary incentives to students in the government-run schools in order to curb the dropouts menace. As per the plan, the state government will give Rs.100 per month to a boy student and Rs.150 per month to a girl student from Class I to X. A bank account will be opened in the name of the students where the money will be deposited. The money deposited in banks cannot be withdrawn till the students attain 18 years of age and if a student drops out midway, no money will be given to him/her, according to the proposal. In Jharkhand, the literacy rate is just 54 percent against the national average of 65.

Teacher’s Bite

Ms. Jailaxmi Rammoorthy,
Principal, Vel’s Vidyashram, Chennai

Education system in India
There have been mind-boggling changes in educational dynamics due to the
impact of
globalization and influx of progressive information technology. This has placed a new thrust on alternative and newer ways of learning. Rote learning of undigested information and focus on just passing examinations will have to be replaced by higher order thinking and learning by understanding. The schools that have felt the need to keep pace with these changes have transformed themselves into learning laboratories. They encourage higher order thinking characterized by skills such as reasoning, analysis, synthesis and problem solving; and to initiate, sustain and develop such thinking.

These developments place great responsibility on the teachers and make a strong case for teacher development. In-service teacher training programmes should be systematic, regular and well planned. Such training should help the teacher understand students’ learning better and also equip them to improve their domain knowledge using tools such as information technology.

On ASSET
ASSET evaluation is extremely comprehensive and gives the student exact assessment of his/her learning in cognitive, numeracy and literacy skills. ASSET has come up with yet another important learning aid by the way of “Teachers’ Sheets.” Ideally all students should take ASSET tests to get to know where they are, and use the assessment to improve their learning.

A Tribute To Arthur C. Clarke

The achievements of Arthur C. Clarke, unique among his peers, bridge the arts and sciences. His works and his authorship have ranged from scientific discovery to science fiction, from technical application to entertainment, and have made a global impact on the lives of present and future generations.

The visionary author of more than 70 books, was most famous for his short story “The Sentinel”, which was expanded into the novel that was later adapted for Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. He was the first to suggest the use of satellites for communication and meteorology decades before they could become reality. Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the “Big Three” of science fiction, alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. The astronomer Sir Patrick Moore said that his friend was a “great visionary, brilliant science-fiction writer and great forecaster”. He passed away at the age of 90, on 18th March, 2008

Humour

Student: Wish I had been born 1000 years ago.
Teacher: Why is that?
Student: Just think of all the history that I wouldn’t have to learn!

“Make Them Love Science!”Says MIT Professor

MIT professor and Web star Walter Lewin swings from pendulums and faces down wrecking balls to show students the zany beauty of science.

“It took me a decade to come to the realization,” says Lewin at his MIT office, “that really what counts is not what you cover, but what counts is what you uncover.” What Lewin has uncovered is that requiring the memorization of formulas and equations is not the most effective way to teach. Teachers must, he believes, engage students with action.
One of his students, Carolyn Crull, a civil engineering major from San Diego, says Lewin’s classroom theatrics have helped open her eyes to her surroundings.
“A lot of students spend their days just staring at the ground as they walk around,” she says, “but, maybe you will look up every once in a while and see the beauty in the world.”
Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at MIT. Now he has emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.

Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.

“Through your inspiring video lectures I have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.

Steve Boigon, 62, a florist from San Diego, wrote, “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes.”

Some of his correspondents compare him to Richard Feynman, the free-spirited, bongo-playing Nobel laureate who popularized physics through his books, lectures and television appearances.

Professor Lewin revels in his fan mail and in the idea that he is spreading the love of physics. “Teaching is my life,” he said.

The professor, who is from the Netherlands, said that teaching a required course in introductory physics MIT students made him realize “that what really counts is to make them love physics, to make them love science.”

He said he spent 25 hours preparing each new lecture, choreographing every detail and stripping out every extra sentence. “Clarity is the word,” he said.