Students will rise to new heights if we expect it.

 Research consistently shows – high teacher expectations leads to higher student achievement.  We must see high potential for our students futures.  What teachers try in the classroom the relationships they build with students, the extent of their encouragement, and a climate of possibility – these things affect learning (Sleeter p. 127)

 Think beyond students’ present performance.  Think beyond closing the achievement gap.  Expect more!  Higher order thinking skills  Innovative teaching  Eliminate low-level boring classes  Tune into individual needs  Look for solutions – expect to find them

 Publishing in the second grade – Juanita  Second graders creating books using computers.  This project had them writing, editing, using technology to publish their own work.  The project is fun, collaborative, innovative and challenging.  Expects and teaches beyond the curriculum  “College doesn’t give you power, but you must bring it with you, from when you’re little” (p.131).

 Intellectually Challenging or Skill based?  TEACH BOTH!  Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure your hitting lower and higher order thinking.

 1. How does the unit as you have planned it so far, or as you have taught it before, address each of the six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.  2. How do the curriculum standards for the unit you are developing address the levels of Bloom’s taxonomy?  3. How does the textbook address the levels of Bloom’s taxonomy?  4. Using Bloom’s taxonomy as a guide, if your students were to be prepared for college, what should they be learning to do in this unit that isn’t listed above?

 Multiculturalism, high academic expectations and Bloom’s in action in a 4 th grade science solar system unit.  She uses a syllabus, students conduct research, create power points, write reports and learn to take notes on mini-lectures.  Intentionally demystifies college for students to help them envision it in their future.  Links to different cultural myths about the solar system,  Students analyze and synthesize knowledge.

 Teach students how to think more complexly.  Modeling the thinking – not just showing how to do something.  Alternative perspectives about knowledge – developmentalist perspective  Focuses on the process of knowing.  Making meaning trumps memorizing  Individualize instruction

 Allows teachers to build higher order thinking alongside lower order concepts and skills  To determine types of scaffolding needed – use assessment rubric to know what learning looks like by end of unit.  Don’t over scaffold  Example: Gina scaffold Spanish Lit Analysis  Develops language skills while teaching literary analysis  Uses comparison charts to scaffold  Later, students do it independently

 Teaching as intellectual apprenticeship  Teacher as senior practicing intellectual apprenticing students through complex world of academic work  Show students how we solve intellectual problems and work to complete and academic task.  Engage students, then slowly pull back – build their confidence in their ability to do it.

 Serving students from historically underserved communities is a challenge.  The structure of knowledge as standards/test/textbook – students as consumers.  Solution is – Paradigm shift – students as intellectual workers who produce knowledge.  If we believe they can, and show them how, it is possible for them to move beyond the achievement gap.