Capturing Madeline Hunter’s ghost

At my school, there is a growing effort to codify exactly how teachers are expected to teach. [Think: New and Improved Madeline Hunter Lesson Design (now with Lemon!), repackaged, and etched in stone.] Without going too much into that plan, as it is (thankfully) still in draft phase, I will share with you the response that me and my colleagues came up with.  A major goal of ours was to include flexibility, while still maintaining the intentions of the original draft.

I am very proud of our re-visualization of the lesson cycle.  I’m sharing it because I think that, even if it does not become dogma on our campus, it could still be useful to other teachers.

Deepest apologies to M. Hunter, but I could not resist using this picture.

The “Lesson Spiral Thingy” helps me clarify my own thinking about what a lesson needs, and it will help me identify and articulate weak spots in lessons that I already have.  Additionally, it is simpler than the lesson flow charts I have seen; simple enough, I think, that I can use it “on the fly”. At the same time, it still captures the spirit of traditional lesson designs.

(I hope this stands on its own; I am a little bit fearful that it will be difficult to understand, when taken out of its context as a response to an unsharable first draft. )

Summary of the Graphic

The overall visual representation is a spiral, starting at the outside, and cycling inward.

• This spiral can be thought to cycle through:

Opening ⇒ (Prerequisite knowledge ⇒ Instructional Activities ⇒ Activity/ Practice) ⇒ Assessment/ Feedback ⇒ Closing

It should be recognized that these may blend together; e.g., the “Instructional Activities” may not be entirely separate from the “Activity/ Practice”

Bribing teachers

This guy knows about bribing public employees

I teach in a district that is at the forefront of giving bonuses to teachers based on their students’ test scores.  ($42 million district-wide in 2011; I couldn’t track down how much of that specifically went to teachers.)  I’ve said on more than one occasion, less-than-half jokingly, that the money would be better spent paying the students.

I just don’t think these bonuses improve teaching.

• It is hard for me to imagine the teacher who is going to fundamentally improve what they do in the classroom because of bonuses.