OK so there are two rubrcis we can now choose from – Mike and Dave’s – great rubrics. They are similar but Mike prefers Dave’s version, explaining: Here is Mike’s message: Ben – I have included two rubrics— first mine and then David Ganahl´s version. Even if he does not want credit, the contributions that […]
Candace was at the just-completed three day workshop we had in Los Angeles in Lake Elsinore in Mike Peto’s classroom with 25 people. She provides this report of how her classes went this morning: Hello Ben – I wish you could have seen me in action this morning! Not gonna lie… I was IN FORM!
Mike’s new version of jGR will probably replace it. jGR has our hearts, but all things grow and change and I believe this new version of jGR is terrific and that we should all look at it closely as we consider the nuts and bolts of how we are going to assess our students this
Thank you for crediting me on this idea originally, Dave and Mike, and we always credit Robert Harrell, Annick Chen and jen Shongalla on this as well, but you and Dave are the ones who have brought this proven rubric to the next level. I am thrilled to see this appear here just in time for
I advocate years 1 and 3 to be “story input years” and years 2 and 4 to be “reading input years”. I find that the kids get kind of spoiled if given too many stories in level 2. In year 1 they get burned out on stories by spring anyway. When, in year 2, we hit them
It seems odd to me that the name Paso a Paso was chosen by a textbook company as a book title. We don’t learn languages in that way, mechanically thinking through things step by step, but by experiencing a flood of input that cannot be labeled as a step by step process at all.
The current consensus on why circling doesn’t work is that the kids, who aren’t stupid but only appear that way to stupid teachers, figure out the pattern early on and once that happens they are quickly bored and tune out. Who can blame them? The reaction of many CI teachers upon realizing this was to
Anne Matava’s long-awaited third volume of story scripts is finally here. Those who use scripts may want to peruse below the first twelve pages of this new and excellent collection. It is divided into scripts for first and second year students and scripts for advanced students. Also included in this third volume is a kind of
I am in Lake Elsinore, CA, in Mike Peto’s classroom with a group of very talented teachers. This post will be short as I need to get back to the workshop, but this is so big that it needs to be shared right away. I visited Dave Ganahl’s classroom last night and noticed a two-column
We must not fret if a story doesn’t get out on the main highway for a wonderful ride. Some stories just aren’t destined for greatness. Sometimes we just barely plug along, with no laughs at all, no sparkles, no cute moments. That’s fine. By delivering comprehensible messages we are doing our job. We trust that
This is from Craig in Los Angeles: Hey Ben, Today for the first time I was able to write “no ingles” on the board, in a very non-authoritarian way, and students willingly stood up to the challenge, and even got onto each other for speaking out of turn in English. Also for the first time,
I recommend that we read the second sentence of what Claire said below (in red) carefully. It is a reference to the idea put forth in some research that in education curriculum and instruction and assessment must mirror each other. It is something Claire told me last summer and I won’t ever forget it. Claire
