The Hidden Curriculum: I Wish I Knew

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | MENTOR | July 29, 2018

I recently attended the 2018 Leadership Alliance National Symposium #LANS2018, and had the opportunity to mentor a few undergraduate students. This caused me to reflect over some of my own experiences, which first took me back to a lesson I taught previously.

It is the beginning of the school year, and I am teaching biology. The opening question projected on the board reads, “What is Life?” The students respond with all the obvious science answers, but I tell them they are all wrong. They begin to look around the room as if I were crazy. I go on to tell them, “life” is from B to D that means it is from Birth to Death. We all get the same 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes in a hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year; however, none of us knows how much time we have left. But, here is the real-world connection, what lies between B and D? It is “C.” So, what is “C”? It is a choice. Our life is a matter of choices. Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.

My experience in brief

I really had not the slightest clue what I wanted to do when I graduated from high school. My cousin was planning to pursue an academic and professional career in dentistry. The valedictorian was going on to practice and become an attorney. Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to have his or her luxurious plans set too. 

I recall a conversation with my uncle, who I always say gave me the worst piece of advice. He said, “Choose a career that suits the lifestyle you want to live.” Well, you say that to a young person who has come from very humble beginnings and was homeless, the first thought is then to choose a career that makes a lot of money. I was not athletic, so the only obvious answer was …I don’t know, I guess you better become a doctor.

Now, remind you I was homeless. In my senior year, I picked up a job at Cracker Barrel as a host, making only $6.50/hr. So aside from scholarships and grants, I had no real way to pay for school. I remember when I was applying, I did not even have the money to pay for the admission tests or application fees. I was given the money by a parent of one of the other students in the school with whom I had come in contact. Later, in the spring of my senior year, Dillard University came to my school to conduct onsite admissions and I was accepted.

I decided, I was going to major in Biology, but really was not sure if I had a true interest. Now, I was a teenager who had acne. Perhaps, I could work to become a dermatologist and cure everyone’s skin problems. This was definitely a misconceived notion. Nevertheless, the Natural Sciences Department at the university focused on grooming you to pursue a MD-PHD program. So, I felt like I really had to keep going despite my internal reservations.

I am told I have to participate in research programs in order to improve my academic resume. So, I applied and was accepted into a few programs, The Leadership Alliance being one of them. I was happy that I had a few choices, but The Leadership Alliance was my top choice because I submitted one application for three university sites. I do not recall which sites I requested, but I know University of Miami was my top pick. Who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to live in Miami with a stipend and minimal living expenses? I certainly wasn’t! Registration is now days away, I hop in my car and drive 12 hours from New Orleans, LA to Miami, FL. That summer was an enjoyable experience and a real eye opener for me. I had the opportunity to do biomedical research involving paralysis with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 

The following year, I finished at Dillard University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. Only thing is, I had a few ah ha moments after graduation and my original plans post undergrad had changed… So, I had to make some life choices and began to ask myself some tough questions. How can I leverage my life and academic experiences for the good of communities, inclusive of those traditionally marginalized, alongside the organizations that had helped to support me? 

I transitioned into education and applied to graduate school. Today, I fill the secondary to post-secondary, military, trade and industry pipelines, one mind at a time.

ORGANIZED NOTE-TAKING

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | April 6, 2017

Learning is a messy process, but as we all know, information is most useful when it is organized. Organizing content provides schema or scaffolded structures to aid the brain in understanding the content. The common denominator for all learning, however, is its active nature. This article will discuss guided Cornell notes, a strategy for note-taking I have used to help record information to be learned, revisit the information by working with the ideas, developing understanding, plus making sense of the information, before synthesizing and applying the information into a product.

            Lecture in the classroom is continuous, day in and day out, class after class, students are constantly taking in information and updating their knowledge base. Many students take notes to help them look back at what was presented in lectures and build on this information for subsequent gains in recall and comprehension. However, I have found that many students often have difficulties taking notes during lectures and studying. The problem generally presents itself as issues writing fast enough to keep up with the pace of the lecture, paying attention during the lecture, making sense out of notes after class, legibility, and deciding what is important to record during the lecture. Many of these issues often result in notes that are partial or have incomplete lecture points. As a result, I use guided Cornell notes to address these issues, as they provide a note-taking style that is quick, clear, and structured.

            Setting up Cornell notes is a simple process. The power of this strategy comes in interacting with the notes multiple times. When I initially presented this strategy of note taking to students, I distributed the Cornell Note Format, the Cornell Note Template, and a Cornell Notes Student Sample before discussing each section of the format with students. We addressed the purpose and the importance of each section, beginning with where to write the heading, main ideas, topic, keywords, and essential question. We also spent a little time highlighting the importance of the essential question and how it guides the discussion summary of the notes. It was equally important to review the types of information that go in the right column versus the left column that is used to write questions that reflect different levels of thinking. Additionally, we took note of where the summaries are written and discussed the value of writing concise summaries of readings and classroom instruction. Seeing a visual as I explained the process helped make the descriptions and explanations clear. I stressed to students the importance of taking notes in understanding and retaining content. We looked at the curve for forgetting to reiterate the point that they must use the notes as a tool, not simply take notes. Read more about this in a previous article Information Retention and Practice.

USING ADVANCED ORGANIZERS

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | April 4, 2017

            Do you recall learning about cellular energy when you were in school? The science teacher presented all this in-depth information about photosynthesis and cellular respiration. I mean, you are sitting there and the teacher is speaking what seems to be a foreign language, “autotrophs, heterotrophs, reactants, products, thylakoid, chloroplast, mitochondria, nucleus, organelles, plastids, bioenergetics, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), cellular respiration, photosynthesis, autotroph, heterotroph, pigment, chlorophyll, light dependent, light independent, Calvin Cycle, NADP, calorie, Calorie, glycolysis, fermentation, electron transport chain, Krebs cycle, anaerobic, aerobic, glucose, glycogen, starch, pyruvic acid, lactic acid, NAD & FAD, acetyl-coA, citric acid, and creatine.” You get the point right? It is like this information overload, only to finish hearing about the information and still not understand the fundamental concept that photosynthesis and respiration are related, mutually connected physiological functions. It makes sense why it was so difficult. One reason was information overload and the other was material exchange could not keep up making the information overwhelming or impossible to process. Without the advantage of any setup, without any forecasting of content or accessing of prior knowledge, discerning what is important and learning it to the point of recall is rather challenging. This scenario highlights the importance of advance organizers.

Advance organizers are statements, activities, graphic organizers, or other tool that is used to introduce the lesson topic and help students anticipate, organize and illustrate the relationship between what the students are about to learn and the relevant information they have already learned. They are used in a variety of ways  (e.g. expository, narrative, skimming, graphic) during instruction in order to bring ease to students’ ability to make connections from one concept to the next, acting as a conceptual bridge and indicate to students what information from a lesson will be important.

QUESTIONS TO PROMOTE THINKING

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 30, 2017

            Effective questions keep students thinking and involved in the learning process (Varlas, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). Questions can range from simple knowledge to complex evaluation. Each level involves a higher level of thinking and thus a greater degree of student involvement with the content.  Inferential questions help students fill in gaps, connecting what they already know with what they are about to learn or learning. Analytic questions require students to really think about what they are about to learn or learning and start to analyze why it might be important or what it really means, which can be used to help stimulate class discussions and give greater meaning to information or ideas. By asking the right type of questions, teachers can help students progress from merely recalling facts and figures, to successfully applying and evaluating new information in a variety of situations.

            Let us take a look back at the scenario discussed in the post Learning and Behavior Cues. When it comes to classroom instruction, the first question for me is always the essential question, which guides the lesson and its contents whether from guiding a class discussion, a lecture, individual student reading assignments, viewing a video, labs, or assessments. Here is a sample of the matrix I created in order to transition from a unit on Basic Biological Principles to the next one on Cells. 

Notice how the essential question is connected to a big idea and performance indicator. Making the connection between the content and the essential question helps students learn how to study. With this lesson, I used had students organize information using Cornell notes, where I created an essential question to guide and frame the note-taking and connect the content knowledge communicated in the notes that helped students write their own questions for their notes, and frames the summary.

LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR CUES

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 29, 2017

            Occasionally, there are times in the classroom when a teacher may find the majority of the class off-task, in the middle of an assignment, or just finishing an activity, when he or she needs to grab the students attention in order to get everyone back on-task, give further instructions, or conclude an activity. In the same way, there are times during a lesson when a teacher may need to remind and reinforce students’ ability to do a particular task, use a set of skills, or exercise what students already know about a topic to address questions or enhance further learning. Then again, perhaps a teacher is delivering a lesson. It is well planned, and the learning activities are structured to reflect the needs of the students. Everything seems to be going well, and the students should be learning. But, how do we know? The best-kept secret a teacher has in his or her disposal is a variety of ways to quiet their classroom, grab their students’ attention, set the stage for learning, guide students from familiar territory to new concepts, and monitor student behavior indicators about concerns or difficulties in learning. In fact, Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2006) suggested that some 80 percent of student-teacher interactions involve, what they refer to as, cues.

GENERATING AND TESTING HYPOTHESIS

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 24, 2017

Science teachers are well acquainted with inquiry as integral to the understanding of science. These processes require students to wonder “why,” ask questions, generate and test hypothesis, and seek answers to those questions. This is the nature of inquiry. “Inquiry engages students with their own thinking processes. It teaches students to think for themselves instead of chasing the right answer” (Allen, Kimura-Walsh, & Griffin, 2009, p. 305). When students generate and test hypotheses, they are engaging in complex mental processes, applying content knowledge like facts and vocabulary, and enhancing their overall understanding of the content (Varlas, 2002; Donohue & Gill, 2009; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006; Kuhn, Hubbell, & Pitler, 2012). Researchers have indicated that students who generate and test hypotheses by engaging in problem solving have a clearer understanding of lesson concepts (Kuhn et al., 2012; Marzano et al., 2006).

            One of the great tools I use in the classroom to help foster questioning, hypothesis development, and data analysis is demonstration of discrepant events. The discrepant event’s surprising, often counterintuitive outcome creates sort of a cognitive disequilibrium that temporarily throws students mentally off-balance. For example, common sense tells us balloons and flames do not mix, but during one in-class demonstration students observed a balloon over a candle flame without bursting the balloon. The unexpected outcome of such a discrepant event generated a need-to-know that motivated students to thoughtfully reconsider their prior conceptions and generate new hypothesis.

PROVIDING EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 21, 2017 

How do we know if learning occurs? Seems like a straightforward question, but the answer is far from simple. The question needs to be framed in terms of the learner, the content, the context, and the assessment instrument. Assessment is an essential element of education, especially in an era characterized by accountability. Every assessment, regardless of its purpose, rests on three pillars: a model of how students represent knowledge and develop competence in the subject domain, tasks, or situations that allow one to observe students' performance, and an interpretation method (National Research Council, 2001). As a classroom tool, assessments can help learning if it provides information to be used as feedback by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged, and help students and teachers show progress and measure achievement (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & William, 2003). Large-scale assessments are driving reform efforts and changing the very nature of education.

Like other important education concepts, assessment can be defined in many different ways. It has been viewed as measuring what a student knows, but also as a process to understand and improve learning. It has been focused on the learning product, on its process, and also on both of them. It has been named summative and formative, of learning and for learning, objective and subjective. It has been associated with grading and evaluation, and often used interchangeably. In other words, we consider assessment to be essential to learning and teaching, but what is an assessment, be it homework, class work, a portfolio, project, quiz, or test, without feedback. Therefore, checking a student's performance and providing feedback on more than one occasion over an extended period of time, using different tools and methods, and letting different people participate in the assessment process, to include teachers, students, and their peers, will give us a more accurate picture of what students have learned and help transform a student’s learning.

SETTING OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 18, 2017

           Part and parcel of the design and implementation of instruction is an understanding of principles of development (e.g., relevance, autonomy, applicability) and the conditions that enhance learning (Blasé & Blasé, 2003). Setting objectives, linked to the content (i.e. disciplinary core ideas in Reading/English, Social Studies, Science, or a Technical Subject) and a literacy/mathematics standard or a higher order thinking skill (i.e. a task that requires students to do something with the content knowledge and/or skill they have acquired), can provide direction for learning and focus both the teacher and student on exactly what the student should be able to do as a result of a lesson (Varlas, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). Below are a few science examples that follow the format students will be able to (SWBAT)… in order to (IOT).

• SWBAT Define and recognize examples of the characteristics of living things IOT discuss whether particular examples (e.g. bacterium, virus, computer) are living or non-living.
• SWBAT Identify and describe the parts of an atom in order to IOT differentiate between elements.
• SWBAT Describe the function of chloroplasts and mitochondria IOT explain their roles in energy transfer.
• SWBAT Identify similarities and differences between simple dominance, codominance, incomplete dominance, sex-linked, polygenic, and multiple alleles IOT analyze multiple texts that compare Mendelian and non-Mendelian patterns of inheritance.

However, a principle of learning is that the learner must view what is to be learned as relevant to the learner (Varlas, 2002; Blasé & Blasé, 2003; Marzano et al., 2006). Therefore, in couching the outcomes of the learning, they must be defined and positioned in a way that appeals to the value to the learner. Hence, it is not sufficient to simply tell the learner what will be learned, but also why it is important to be learned. Traditional instructional objectives state the behavioral outcomes on the presumption that the learner will know why the new knowledge or skill is important to the learner. It is probably better to be explicit, and state the value of the content to the learner. Learners must be able to relate the goals and objectives of the lesson with their own personal needs, goals, and desires. It then becomes the responsibility of the teacher to determine how best to achieve the objectives of the instruction with the students who are to receive it.

REPRESENTING KNOWLEDGE NONLINGUISTICALLY

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 14, 2017

           Nonlinguistic representation is based on the Dual Coding Theory of information storage. This theory suggests that knowledge is stored in two forms: linguistic form that focuses on storing words and phrases and nonlinguistic form that focuses on storing information using mental images and physical sensations (Paivio, 1990; Haystead & Marzano, 2009). The more individuals use both types of representation, the better they are able to think about and recall knowledge. Recently, use of nonlinguistic representation has proven to not only stimulate but also increase brain activity (Varlas, 2002). Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2006) highlighted that teachers primarily use linguistic methods to convey knowledge to students that is, either talking to students about new content or having them to read about new content. However, as teachers, we must understand that students need an equal balance of linguistic and nonlinguistic methods in their everyday learning experiences. The ultimate goal for using these strategies is to help students construct meaning of content and skills being learned by producing nonlinguistic representations in their minds so they are better able to process, organize, and recall it again later (Varlas, 2002; Marzano et al., 2006). There are a variety of ways to represent information nonliguistically. These include graphic organizers, sketches, pictographs (stick figures and symbols), concept maps, dramatizations, flowcharts, and computerized simulations, to name a few.  Despite the method used, nonlinguistic representations should elaborate on knowledge, adding to their knowledge of the basic concepts being taught (Marzano et al., 2006; Haystead, 2009).

INFORMATION RETENTION AND PRACTICE

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 13, 2017

           It has been said that practice makes perfect. Use it or you lose it. Learning something new is hard, especially at the beginning when we are likely to struggle and make mistakes.  The reality is, the only way to learn something new is to practice (Bean, 1912; Finkenbinder, 1913; Baddeley, 2007; Lindsey, Shroyer, Pashler, & Mozer, 2014; Papousek, Pelánek, & Stanislav, 2014; Murre & Dros, 2015). I have never seen anybody become good at a strategy without practice. It may happen, but I have yet to witness it. I doubt that I will see it, because strategy is a discipline. Like any discipline, you have to believe in it and work at it to become skilled; both mindset and effort are required to make progress and become adept at the strategy. The more times we practice, the more we touch the information, the more permanently the information will be stored.

The Curve of Forgetting, originally called the The Ebbinghuas Curve after the German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus who developed it in 1885, demonstrates how we retain or get rid of new information that we take in (Bean, 1912; Finkenbinder, 1913; Baddeley, 2007; Lindse et al., 2014; Papousek et al., 2014; Murre & Dros, 2015). For example, on Monday, at the beginning of a lecture, a student goes in knowing nothing, or 0%. This is where the curve starts at the baseline. At the end of the lecture the student knows 100% of what he or she learned, however well he or she knows it. This is where the curve rises to its highest point. However, if the student does not repeatedly return his or her attention to the information learned in that lecture, did not think about it again, read it again, etc. he or she will have lost 50%-80% of what was learned by Tuesday. The human brain is constantly recording information on a temporary basis: fragments of conversations held throughout the day, what someone said while in the elevator, what was for lunch. The problem is that if a student remembers, say, 50 things in a day, the brain does not automatically know which of these bits of information will be useful in the long run. As a result it sometimes purges that information, along with what was learned in the lecture that he or she actually did want to retain. If the student waits another 24 hours before reviewing the information or practicing the strategy, then he or she will have lost 60%. So, he or she can go from a grade of “A” (100%) to “D” (65%), to “F” (40%) in just 48 hours, and by the end of the month, the student will retain about 2%-3% of the original hour! This coincides with midterm exams, and may account for the student feeling as if he or she has never seen the information before in life when he or she is studying for exams. This could result in the student needing to actually re-learn it from scratch.

THE HOMEWORK DEBATE

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 7, 2017

          The long-standing tradition of homework has been a perennial topic of debate in education, and is probably the most complicated pedagogical strategy teachers use because it is open to variations due to child individual differences and the home context (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006; Vatterott, 2009; Cooper, 2015). Teachers are expected to assign homework because of beliefs of its positive impact, which sometimes conflicts with negative consequences. “The impact of homework on academic achievement is mediated by factors such as appropriateness of the design of homework, student learning abilities, student attitudes, and parent and peer support.” (Lee, 2005, p. 252). Assign too much, the wrong kind, or miss the mark on grading and feedback, and you have diminished the return on investment, resulting in no academic pay-off. Homework is intended to strengthen student skills, advance classroom instruction, and promote student responsibility in learning (Lee, 2005; Marzano et al., 2006; Cooper, 2015); however, that is often times combated with the teacher’s responsibility of creating and enforcing rules for students to complete homework when it is assigned. When students fail to complete homework, the teacher then has to administer a consequence for the missed assignment. Not to mention, teachers then spend hours grading the work that cannot be closely monitored for integrity, plus addressing the concerns of parents with regard to the amount of homework assigned.

Vatterott (2009) made the assertion "We tend to reward working, instead of learning." "Do the pile of work and you'll get the grade. Don't do the work—and even if you demonstrate mastery of the skill or content—you won't get the grade." Possibly worse is the message sent when we grade homework. "When we grade homework, we're rewarding students who learn the first time" (Vatterott, 2009), which can trade measures of learning and getting better at something for measures of compliance (Cooper, 2015).  If we grade kids while they are learning, then that penalizes kids for taking risks, self-assessing, making adjustments, practicing, and figuring out what works best for them to learn something, which can be lead to decreased intrinsic motivation and institutionalize failure (Vatterott, 2009). Additionally, even with diversity among learners in our classrooms, many teachers continue to assign the same homework to all students in the class, which could be contributing to the disproportionate number of students who fail from lower-income households for not doing homework, in essence punishing them for lack of an adequate environment in which to do homework (Vatterott, 2009). This is certainly a concept I never considered. On the contrary, homework grades can help students who work hard, but test poorly, receive a passing grade because when grades are averaged, high scores for homework completion tend to mask poor performance on other measures, producing a skewed picture of progress. Despite all of the debate, one thing that remains certain is that homework provides students with the opportunity to extend their learning outside the classroom (Varlas, 2002). Therefore, teachers should rethink the reasons for assigning homework and improve its instructional quality in order to ensure it is a sound and valuable pedagogical practice that deepens student understanding and builds essential skills.

PROVIDING RECOGNITION

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | March 1, 2017

           In the ideal classroom, all students would be intrinsically motivated to behave appropriately and work hard on every assignment. However, this is not usually the case. I have experienced success in motivating students by providing rewards and recognition. The purpose of providing recognition is not that it is just a nice thing to do, rather a way to reward students' accomplishments related to the attainment of a goal (Varlas, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). All of us like to be recognized for our efforts, especially when those efforts lead to success. Could you imagine being the project lead for a major assignment that added to your company’s highlights and not being recognized for your efforts in adding to the company’s portfolio?

Given that most people want to be viewed as effective contributors, because it reinforces their positive image of themselves and their self-worth, positive recognition is meaningful, supportive, and serves as a communication tool that reinforces and rewards the most important outcomes that people create for an organization, including students in the classroom. When you provide students with recognition, you should do more than just say, "Great Job or Nice Work,” (Varlas, 2002) because recognizing students effectively reinforces the actions and behaviors you most want to see students repeat and reinforces the students’ understanding of how you would like to see him or her contribute in the classroom or throughout the school. This same rule applies to recognizing the faculty and staff in the school. Principals, aside from ensuring the professional growth of your team, if you want your faculty and staff to stay at your school, then it is equally important they feel their efforts and contributions are valued and appreciated. Recognizing them for stellar work is vital to maintaining morale and boosting productivity.

REINFORCING STUDENT EFFORT

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | February 28, 2017

            Effort and recognition speak to the attitudes and beliefs of students, and teachers must show the connection between effort and achievement (Varlas, 2002). Too many students distorted views of success, and failure is no longer scary or painful, it has become the norm. As teachers it is imperative that we create an environment for students where their past failures are irrelevant to the learning occurring inside the classroom. “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently" (Ford, n.d.) Another issue is that some students fail to see the relationship between academic success and future opportunities. Research shows that although not all students realize the importance of effort, they can learn to change their beliefs to emphasize effort (Varlas, 2002; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). The best teaching always takes place in the framework of high expectations. This indicates the need to challenge and push students, not to the point where they give up but to the point where they think, "Wow, look at me go!" Rather than allow students to use their problems and excuses, I try to encourage them to overcome their obstacles, and remind them there are times when something constructive is born out of adversity. Nelson Mandela once said, “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” I translate this to students by telling them, “You can climb that great hill. This journey will not easy but you will make it. I am sure that there are times when you will just felt like giving up, but persevere, keep climbing, never give up and as a result you will possess something that not anyone can take away from you that is the gateway to countless opportunities--opportunities that were not as easily available to many others. You are a winner and all that you need to possess in order to move forward and succeed is within you.”

HELPING STUDENTS WRITE SUMMARIES

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 31, 2017
            Summarizing is a synthesis process that h the key concepts, main ideas, and significant details in order to capture the essence of a lecture, class notes, a concept, event, experiment, theory, or article. This skill represents both Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and Costa’s Level 2. At this level, students are asked to transform or process target knowledge before responding (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2006). This requires substituting, deleting, paraphrasing, and deciding what things to keep, all while having an awareness of the basic structure of the information presented. Marzano et al. (2006) highlighted that this brings out higher-level thinking skills and provides an opportunity to examine information in a new light. As a result, it promotes greater comprehension by asking students to analyze a subject to expose what is essential and synthesize it into a concise segment written in their own words.

One year, before having students write their individual summaries, we watched Flocabulary’s educational hip-hop song and video Summarizing. After watching the video we had a brief discussion, before reading and annotating a science article. Afterwards, students worked in groups to complete a gist summary template, before writing a summary that used the terms and phrases annotated within the article. For homework, I had the students write a song or rap that creatively summarized the information presented in the article.

IDENTIFYING SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 30, 2017
            Ever get sick and wonder, “What in the world is wrong with me?” When this happens, we usually turn to the Internet that provides descriptions of the characteristics of various illnesses. These characteristics are grouped by similarities. We then try to classify the illness by finding the category of the illness that the symptoms most resemble. This process involves being able to identify similarities and differences between two or more phenomena, which is often the basis new discoveries. Sciences classes use this type of comparative analysis frequently to examine data, objects, diagrams, models or specific concepts (e.g. prokaryotic vs. eukaryotic organisms, photosynthesis vs. respiration, mitosis vs. meiosis, etc.).

AVOIDING SATIATION

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 24, 2017

Classroom teachers normally have some latitude in choosing instructional practices within the classroom. Thus, the development of best instructional practices in most schools is a combination of practices that are dictated by the curriculum itself and practices chosen and implemented by the teacher. I recall sitting in teachers classes through what seemed like endless lectures and needless boredom at various points during my academic career. It was like eating a pint of gelato, but halfway through you get tired of it and do not want to eat it anymore. These are examples of satiation. Student satiation (i.e. boredom, diminished involvement, or decreased quality of work) is often overlooked, but it can be avoided by providing students with a feeling of progress, changing things up a bit, and adding a bit of variety to curriculum and classroom environment. Just add a little stimulus. Imagine how boring even your favorite dinner would be if you had to eat it every night for the rest of the year. This is sometimes what we do to our students when we are overly repetitive in the classroom. Often times, even after there are obvious signs of student experienced satiation.

VALUE IN CLASSROOM VARIETY

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 20, 2017

            Being a teacher is certainly a complex job. It has so many variables that teachers are never sure that they are doing the best work possible. Instruction is the basic work of a teacher. The goal is that each student learns the course content, develops the established skills, and performs at the highest level. Such a goal implies a wide set of tasks that a teacher has to do. The following list presents just some of them: a) select the modes of teaching, b) design the instructional activities, c) choose or design the learning materials, d) identify students' learning and emotional needs, e) address students' needs in an effective way, f) create a classroom environment that fosters learning, g) organize all instructional elements into a coherent and effective whole, h) maximize instructional time, i) implement decisions in a successful way, and j) identify instructional problems and solve them. How we decide to provide instruction is important for diverse groups of learners. Therefore, any action requires selecting and implementing a variety of powerful instructional methods that simultaneously address a variety of different learning needs.

TEACHERS AND MOMENTUM

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 7, 2017

Newton’s First Law of Motion indicates that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and once in motion, the object develops momentum (Serway, 2009). In the game of kickball, when a player heads a moving ball, the ball’s velocity changes rapidly. After the ball is struck, the ball’s speed and the direction of the ball’s motion is changed. As a result, the ball moves across the field with a different speed than it had and in a different direction than it was traveling before the collision. The force and the duration of the collision between the ball and the player affect the motion or linear momentum of the ball. This sport scenario is rather similar to educators in the classroom. Each year, students enter the classroom with a host needs and pregnant with potential. As teachers, we are charged with meeting students where they are, working with and meeting the needs of young people, watching them mature and grow, giving birth to what lies within. Just like a ball, students at rest tend to stay at rest and students in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force. The teacher is a single player, an external force, who aids a student in picking up speed or gathering momentum. The more momentum, the more difficult it is to come to a stop.

OVERLAPPING THE OLD MULTITASKING

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | January 3, 2017

Most teachers spend a significant amount of time in the classroom or preparing for activities in the classroom. The amount of time dedicated to other tasks varies, but activities outside the classroom are an integral part of the job. On an average day, a teacher could spend about 20% of my time on classroom preparation, 20% teaching in the classroom, 20% grading papers, 15% responding to administration, 10% providing personal attention to students, 5% on extra curricular activities, and another 10% of interacting with parents. Given the number of responsibilities that teachers have to tackle daily, many find themselves multitasking through tasks. Researchers have coined teacher multitasking as overlapping (Marzano, Foseid, Foseid, Gaddy, Marzano, 2005; Savage & Savage, 2010. Overlapping involves attending to two or more events at the same time (Savage & Savage, 2010). For example, I always try to be in the hall between classes as part of my routine in building relationships with students throughout the school. While students are entering the class, they are met with a warm greeting and welcome into our home away from home. At times, I simply stand in the doorway so I can keep an eye on the hallway traffic and one eye on students coming in the classroom. If the students see a teacher, they are less likely to behave inappropriately. Other times, I walk through the hallway, greeting students along my path, sending and responding to emails. Though I probably should not admit it, I have even been guilty of reading and sending emails or grading papers during department meetings. These are still examples of overlapping right? Just kidding.