Two Pint PLC

Multilingual learners are sitting in most classrooms today. How do we support ELL students’ learning in math, science and social studies while they navigate the language and cultural barriers of their emergent bilingualism? We look at some research on how taking responsibility for our own cultural and linguistic perspective as teachers can help.

Later, we discuss another listener recommendation. Sensemaking is an important cognitive process that is subtly distinct from thinking, planning and answering. Understanding the unique process of sensemaking leads to ways we can support it with our students.

Kelly Kluthe joins us for the Peer Review this month to share a beer from her favorite brewery while she shares her progress in implementing standards-based grading in two very different school districts.

We drink Serenata Notturna, a barrel-aged sour American wild ale from Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project in Denver, CO.

Standards-based grades are an exciting option for making grades more meaningful. We look at some recent writings on how to avoid some of the most common mistakes in our gradebooks, and then consider how standards-based grades can support some of the best practices.

Later, we read some additional work suggested by one of our past authors. Her new work helps us connect our ideas on building student agency with professional development and collegial mentoring. How can we make our collaborations as effective as possible?

Aaron Mathieu joins us for the Peer Review this month to tell us how he approaches his curriculum. We discussed threshold concepts in episode 009, but how could driving questions meet the same goal?

We drink Dark Truth, an imperial stout from Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City, MO.

Students should drive their own learning. Drew Ising, another biology teacher from Baldwin High School, joins the PLC to discuss how the NGSS framework calls for letting our students take the lead in our classroom. We must guide students as they build understanding and skill, but how do we deal with misconceptions and incomplete understanding without removing their control over the process?

Later, our listener community has submitted an article on departmental culture. Research suggests that the effects of bad employees are disproportionately large. How do we actively participate in constructing productive department and building culture? Some encouraging research out of New York shows that we can have big impact with attainable policy changes.

Social controversy swirls in the public space. Societal tensions carry into the classroom and affect how students interact with each other and the material. Teachers must have the courage to address contentious topics in their classroom, the wisdom to know where their expertise lies, and the resolution to see their choices through to the end. We examine the writings of Dr. Diana Hess, an expert on the subject of controversy in the classroom, as we try to determine best practice for educators at each grade level.

Later, we return to another article shared with us from the listener community. An Op-Ed considers the purpose of public education and what value it adds (or doesn’t add) to the nation. We debrief the author’s comments and then examine what the research actually says about the value of American education.

Finally, we let the mic run to share with you an Outtake. We get to musing on the unique situation scientific controversy presents. How do you deal with topics that are politically controversial, but not scientifically controversial?

We drink Nitro Merlin, a nitro-brewed milk stout from Firestone Walker Brewing Company in Paso Robles, CA.

Online education makes learning opportunities available for millions of people who otherwise would have very limited access to teachers, peers, and classrooms. As educators continue to explore all the ways we can use digital learning environments to better reach kids, we must search for ways to make the digital space as responsive and personal as a real teacher in a physical classroom. This month’s paper looks at how providing social cues in a digital setting improves student engagement and understanding.

Later we read a paper provided by the community in comments on episode 011 For Whom Does the Bell Toll. How do the demands of curricula that can scale across many classrooms conflict with a school’s ability to provide autonomy for great teachers? We’ll read commentary from a blog post and provide professional literature to guide our next steps.

Finally, our peer review segment will include a phone call from a colleague in California higher education. We’ll reflect on his comments and attempt to provide some follow-up questions to which you can respond.

We drink Victory at Sea, an imperial, vanilla and coffee porter from Ballast Point Brewing Company.

Dr. Heidi Hallman, associate professor of English education at the University of Kansas and author of Secondary English Teacher Education in the United States: Responding to a Changing Context, joins our PLC this month. Patterns in teacher preparation have changed over the last couple decades. Patterns in how teachers are trained to use standards, leverage technology and support diverse learnings impact how those teachers will participate in their future departments. Later, we’ll look at how research into mastery learning has affected success in surgical training. Differences in practice and assessment method lead to differences in student growth. The nature of the practice problems, the schedule on which we practice and the rate at which we move on to new material all affect the progress of our students and the durability of their competency. We drink Surreal Skies, an imperial dark saison from Double Shift Brewing.

Differentiation can be a contentious topic. Most educators want to reach all of their students, but the realities of how they can serve the breadth of needs in a classroom can lead to frustration. We consider the state of the national conversation by looking at a paper from Warwick (Contested Knowledge A Critical review of the Concept of Differentiation in Teaching and Learning). It argues that theoretical perspectives, policies, frameworks and the implementation of ideas relating to the technique have become conflated, because of the contested nature of the term. Later we return to math education by looking at a study using fMRI data to observe brain activity while solving math problems using different techniques (When math operations have visuospatial meanings versus purely symbolic definitions: Which solving stages and brain regions are affected?) Finally, we roll out the new Peer Review segment, in which we discuss your comments and feedback on previous episodes. We drink Skull Splitter, a strong ale from The Orkney Brewery in the United Kingdom.

Shannon Ralph, the 2015 Kansas Teacher of the Year, joins our PLC this month. Data analysis is getting increasing attention in education. Data science can have considerable influence over education, especially in online or blended learning settings. How do teachers find actionability in the data while still meeting the tremendous demand of running a classroom five days a week? We’ll consider comments from the journal Nature (What data and analytics can and do say about effective learning) on the subject. Later the discussion turns to special education and how teachers’ perceptions of support impact their efficacy (If Science Teachers are Positively Inclined Toward Inclusive Education, Why Is It So Difficult?). We drink The Big Chew, and imperial stout from Dodge City Brewing.

Lesson planning and sequencing seem to be ever present problems for teachers and coordinators. Which topics should go where? Who should have control over making those decisions? Curriculum research in an economics course provides some insight into how we should choose our priorities (Transforming the economics curriculum by integrating threshold concepts). As we search for how to create a system for making sequencing decisions we’ll add a second study (Looking for Coherence in Science Curriculum) that suggests not all those questions have a single clear answer. Later we’ll turn to the impact of SES on how students’ brains respond to different educational situations (The Emerging (Social) Neuroscience of SES). We drink Tough Kitty, a seasonal milk stout from Boulevard Brewing Co.

Camden Hanzlick-Burton joins us from Washington to discuss the effects of high school students earning college credit before they graduate. Washington has Running Start, Kansas has dual enrollment, and many other states have similar programs. Some new and more detailed measures of Running Start outcomes (How Much of a “Running Start” Do Dual Enrollment Programs Provide Students?) indicate there may be some problems with the program and how it is impacting student achievement. Then we turn to elementary education to consider how teacher perceptions of technology shape tablet usage and impact on student learning (Exploring the use of educational technology in primary education: Teachers’ perception of mobile technology learning impacts and applications’ use in the classroom). We drink Oak Aged Yeti, a whiskey-infused imperial stout from Great Divide Brewing Co.