KML Curriculum and Instruction Blog

Infographics: An Easy Way to Increase Visuals in the Classroom At the Wisconsin Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages conference this past weekend, one of the sessions was about the use of infographics in the classroom.  Infographics visually organize information about a topic. Doing a simple internet search for infographics about an idea (world religions, periodic table, derivatives) provides you with a variety of charts and pictures that can help students look at information in a new way. If none of the results give you what you were looking for, you can also create your own on a number of different sites. Infogr.am and Piktochart are two popular ones. Piktochart also has an option that you can use to break down the infographic in visual chunks as an alternative presentational tool for a PowerPoint. You could also have your students use an infographic as an alternative to making the classic poster.  As with all material you bring into the classroom, review info...

I recently attended the Wisconsin Art Education Fall Conference at Bruce Guadalupe Community School in Milwaukee.  The most beneficial sectional was given by Concordia University's Director of Art education, Dr. Gaylund Stone. Dr. Stone's presentation focused on conceptual bases and their vital role in curriculum development.  Citing from such educational scholars as Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (UbD) as well as Ernest Boyer, Dr. Stone proposes six conceptual bases, in order of importance, that should be the first factor in curriculum development, even before standards, objectives, or outcomes. Human Purpose: Who am I? Why am I here? How should I then act? Sense of Place: time, space, social setting; Where am I? How do I know? Life Experience: birth, life, death, health, wellness Language Forms: visual, auditory, verbal Interpersonal Behavior: communication, relationships, social structures Production, Consumption, and Conservation: within culture (work-leisure-play...

...instead, negative capability is what being a Christian is all about. The great English poet John Keats defines negative capability as when an individual  "is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason" rather than "being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge" ( http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237836?page=2 ). Keats doesn't say that we shouldn't be curious or that we shouldn't use reason; instead, he says that some things defy reason and can't be understood by rationalizations...and that we have to be okay with it.  People are most successful when they can ponder, but at the end of the day, there has to be a certain measure of acceptance of uncertainty. So, how do Christians live in "uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason"? Paul writes, "Beyond all question, the  mystery  from which ...

I am currently reading Art as Experience by John Dewey for an Art History course that I am taking.  As you know, Dewey is a revered education psychology contributor.  He writes, "Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of surrounding things and then recovers unison with it--either through effort or by some happy change.   And, in a growing life, the recovery is never mere return to a prior state, for it is enriched by the state of disparity and resistance through which it has successfully passed.  If the gap between organism and environment is too wide, the creature dies.  If its activity is not enhanced by the temporary alienation, it merely subsists.  Life grows when a temporary falling out is a transition to a more extensive balance of the energies of the organism with those of the conditions under which it lives" (13). I have been contemplating a few of Dewey's ideas for awhile now.  Here are my app...

Teamwork in a School Good reminder!

Another great video to watch from the Teaching Channel came my way again today.   This video  focused on different ways to allow students to communicate within the classroom.  It also has great ideas about questioning strategies within a classroom.  Some of the non-verbal communication ideas also seemed useful.

Daniel Pink, TMEA Keynote 2009 Everything is bigger in Texas, and that is true even with their professional conferences. The Texas Music Educators' Association (TMEA) conference is the largest music education conference in the U.S., and they spare no expense in bringing in well-known speakers for their general session keynotes. During the 2014 conference last month, they brought in Sir Ken Robinson, who is arguably the biggest name in education today. In 2009, Daniel Pink spoke at TMEA on the value of arts education. Knowing where my passion lies, you can understand why I found this video interesting. Even if you only have the ability to play the radio, I think you will find this video interesting and informative. I think his discussion of what 21st century skills in the global economy look like will be worth your time. Watch the longer video. It has many implications for American education in general and our vision of our curriculum in the years to come.

Josh S. sent me this interesting article  regarding lecturing in a classroom.  It is really common to hear that lecturing is bad, and that hands-on inquiry is good.  However, this article puts the debate in a new light.  It isn't that lecturing is always bad.  Sometimes it may be good.  However, lecturing prohibits the teacher from truly knowing what the students know.

I ran across an link  with several interesting thoughts today.  It hit at the heart of a potential huge strength of technology.  Technology has the potential to customize education (differentiation) for each individual student.   I really enjoyed its links to  Adaptive Learning Technology Companies like  Achieve 3000  or  The Aleks Corporation .  I could see great potential with this type of curriculum integration at our school.

The KML Schools Art Curriculum Committee recently held it's first Art Make & Take. KML federation grade school teachers from a variety of schools and grade levels attended.  They left with lesson and project plans as well as at least one sample project that they created.  The teachers also had time to build professional relationships and gain insight into how others teach art. The Make & Take focused teachers on the intentional teaching of line, one of the elements of art, while also introducing the work of master artists as examples.  The lesson plan about line offered a comprehensive view of what students should understand and be able to do by the end of eight grade.  Teachers can choose what information is appropriate for their students based on grade level and prior knowledge.  The projects allow for adaptation to a variety of grade levels as well. The committee plans to offer Make & Takes on a monthly basis, each focusing on a different elem...

Last night I participated in a webinar on project based learning.  The presenter shared ideas for projects that has done.   She developed project descriptions (similar to recipe cards) for project that could be applied to all subjects and all age levels.   Below I listed some the websites that can be used to develop performance tasks (like those that Keith Bowe has been encouraging us to use to design learning opportunities for our students to develop and demonstrate deep understanding) and projects.   She also shared seven of the project descriptions for free.  I could send those to you as a pdf attachment if you e-mail me requesting one. Be strong and courageous, Matt Moeller Webinar Topic: Project and Problem Based Learning as a Recipe for Real Life Ginger Lewmann Host: Kyle Schutt Date and Time: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 7:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00) Tuesday, January 21, 2014 6:00 pm, Central Standard Time (Chicago, GMT-06:00...

If you're looking for ways to have your students take quizzes and tests online, you might want to check Socrative or AnswerPad . The links on this post will take you to a blog posting about each website.

I attended the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago right before Christmas break and the first session I attended was about measuring (band) student growth. While we don't give our elementary school band students grades like our high school band students, we do currently have quarterly progress reports we send home. Sarah and I have both been frustrated at times with what those forms entail and there were some great ideas for other ways to assess things that I picked up during the session. The link below contains my notes on the session. Curriculum Model Notes

This weekend I finished reading The Core Six - Essential Strategies for Achieving Excellence with the Common Core .  It was an easy read (less than 100 pages) and had very practical and easy to implement suggestion for the core six: 1.   Reading for Meaning 2.  Compare and Contrast 3.  Inductive Learning 4.  Circle of Knowledge 5.  Write to Learn 6.   Vocabulary's CODE. The book helped me develop learning activities to help my students become better readers, writers and discussion participants. I'm giving the book back to James tomorrow.   You can ask him to borrow it.

James posted earlier this year, apparently, about building an online Professional Learning Network (PLN). I have made friends and professional contacts all over the world using Facebook, Twitter, and educational blogs. I am presenting next month in San Antonio with a lady from Maine who I met through Twitter, and we are professional birds of a feather. There are many ways to benefit from building a PLN, and one of those is participating in a Twitter chat. There's a chat (online scheduled discussion) for just about every topic possible. Recently, Rachel Pierson, from Trinity in Waukesha, and I started a chat for WELS teachers. The first one of the new year is tonight, 8-9 p.m. Tonight's topic is timely for our school: Implementing 1:1/BYOT. How can you join? Follow the steps below.  1. Create a Twitter account, if you don't already have one.  2. Go to tweetchat.com and sign in using your Twitter username and password.  3. Enter the hashtag WELSed and press enter. ...

I am going to start using forallrubrics.com to grade my Music Technology projects next semester. I can use it online on my laptop or iPad, and I can also use it offline on my iPad. It will sync the information when I go back online.

This  Stoplight Method Video  from the Teaching Channel gives many suggestions that are useful for feedback from students to guide my next lesson.  I've used methods like this in my classroom without using the poster.  The following questions were included on this website, with my personal answers. What kinds of obstacles might students write on the red light?  My students have included items like other students that were distracting them or places where they did not know how to answer. How could the data gathered from the exit slips be used to inform future lessons?   It shapes the way I introduce or create background the next day in my lessons. How could you adapt the three categories of feedback for your classroom?  I do not really like the "what I learned" because students gravitate toward the title of this lesson.  Instead, I use "where have I seen this pattern in real-life."