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Can Do Statements – 9
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10 thoughts on “Can Do Statements – 9”
Laura,
I agree with the statement itself but I believe it could cast you in an unfavorable light, given that your district/admin is obsessed with measurable outcomes and data/evidence. So I think you are better off leaving out mention of the unconscious mind.
That said, your other simplistic “I can” statements ought to really jazz your observers – they are at their kindergarten level of comprehension. I have found that so long as it appears measurable (and true) the box gets checked and you’re all good. Cynical, but we need to A. Protect out careers and livelihood; B. Survive the Police State Scrutiny and protect our mental health…
just my veteran teacher opinion…
Yes, I would agree that it would be best to leave out the unconscious and focus on how students can measurably demonstrate their focus on comprehension and communication. There are certain things that simply can’t be measured.
This could be through eye contact with the speaker, engaged body language, oral, written, or visual response, and interaction with the speaker and other students.
Bryan said:
…this could be through eye contact with the speaker, engaged body language, oral, written, or visual response, and interaction with the speaker and other students….
This is exactly why we use the Three Modes of Communication and nothing else to develop rubrics that directly (not “kinda”) align teachers w the Communication standard.
Right, but if you have to use a rubric, you can slap on the qualifiers Always, Mostly, Sometimes, and Rarely, with points 4, 3, 2, and 1.
“Always maintains eye contact with the speaker”…
“Mostly shows strong listening body posture”…
“Sometimes responds non-verbally (e.g., with gestures)”…
“Rarely responds in choral responses”…
If admin aren’t already open to hearing about why you teach they way you do, I wouldn’t try to convince them. They usually really don’t care, anyways, about foreign language, like Kelly says below, as long as your students are coasting along smoothly.
I find that the less I use rubrics with that get into particulars, the better. That is, the less I share these rubrics with the students, the better. I think Tina’s Habits of Strong Readers and Interpersonal Communication Skills rubrics are good in that they have a admin-friendly look about them and yet open and airy instead of closed and suffocating.
Greg, I’ve scanned through Cameron’s book. It does look great. It’s a relief to know I can turn to his book if I get in a jam.
On a school´s list of priorities, World Languages is low on the list. I just focus on winning the students and parents over and talking to admin who will listen. (Luckily in my case that is all of them).
Bryan can you clarify:
…it would be best to leave out the unconscious….
I would use the info from Cameron’s Book, which I totally recommend that everyone buy immediately.
Just focus on the interpretive mode and write can-do statements based on that. Do a true/false quiz or something and that’s how it’s “observable” and measureable.
Remember, the English classes don’t have grammatical objectives usually- they do literature. It’s the same thing.
As BVP would say- our first responsibility is to keep our job.
As a general “Learning Target” (which is not what my administration wants, since they want it to change daily), I always leave this posted: I can discuss and/or answer questions about the plot of the film/book/story/video in French. And it’s written in French. But I can get away with that because I’m only observed once a year and no one really cares about foreign language study in my district anyway. New principal next year, so that might change.
I’m glad to repost this from 2018. The objective in italics above is 100% in alignment with the research. However, the concept is not easily grasped by those who lead us. What to do? We either state goals that align with the research or we face an odd sort of judgement from our superiors. Why odd? Because the fact is that school administrators are still trying to evaluate language instruction with the same assessment tools that apply to other subjects in our buildings (doesn’t work….). Odd planet, this one….