InTASC and ISTE standards - What's in it for me?

What are InTASC and ISTE standards?
InTASC:

• "The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), through its Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC), created Model Core Teaching Standards that outline what teachers should know and be able to do to ensure every PK-12 student reaches the goal of being ready to enter college or the workforce in today’s world. This “common core” outlines the principles and foundations of teaching practice that cut across all subject areas and grade levels and that all teachers share"(CCSSO). 

Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium

ISTE:

• ISTE stands for International Society for Technology in Education. There are ISTE Standards for both teachers and for students. "The ISTE Standards for Students are designed to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process of exploration, creativity and discovery no matter where they or their teachers are in the thoughtful integration of ed tech" (ISTE). "The ISTE Standards for Teachers define the new skills and pedagogical insights educators need to teach, work and learn in the digital age" (ISTE).

International Society for Technology in Education
Standards for Students

International Society for Technology in Education
Standards for Educators

Why do we have them?

InTASC:

• "The purpose of the standards is to serve as a resource for states, districts, professional organizations, teacher education programs, teachers, and others as they develop policies and programs to prepare, license, support, evaluate, and reward today’s teachers" (CCSSO).

ISTE:

• These standards encourage both students and teachers to take a more engaging approach to education. These standards emphasis collaboration and creativity while using technology as a means to achieve engagement and activate students' HOTS.

More on the standards

InTASC:

• The standards are written in a way that offers guidance for the teacher. An example of this is, "The teacher can, the teacher will." I like how this is written because it allows for easier adaptation into I Can statements. This makes it much easier to blend technology into the classroom because the use of I Can statements specify exactly what you will be doing. These standards guide teachers when creating lesson plans and integrating technology in the classroom.

ISTE:

• The standards are written in a way that puts educational decision-making and power in students' hands. For teachers, the standards are written so educators can utilize technology to not only create engaging lesson plans that require in-depth critical thinking and analysis, but also to encourage professional development. I appreciate how the standards make sure to include for educators how to set rules/guidelines into order to better use technology in the classroom. These standards put power in the hands of both students and teachers, giving students a voice in their classroom and allow teachers to be agents of change. 

Gamification in Language Arts

Gamification is the hot new buzz word teachers and teacher-educators are throwing around nowadays. But what does it mean? Basically, teachers are now restructuring their curriculum to incorporate a video game-esque point system, complete with levels, challenges, and leaderboards. Or, otherwise put, infusing gaming principles into non-game activities. This new way of teaching incorporates technology in the classroom and appeals to this generations' needs regarding engagement. So how does one "gamify" an English classroom?

One teacher I've observed has done so it an interesting way. Each of her students in every class has their name on the wall. As the year progresses, with every book they read they earn a badge and points. There are many different kinds of badges with outrageously funny names. A few examples include, "Once Upon a Time", "Swashbuckling," and "Whodunnit?" to represent books with fairy tales themes (such as Cinder), about pirates, or mysteries.

Points are awarded for finishing books or for finding literary elements studied in class in their book, such as identifying personification in a novel. The teacher uses Google Docs to keep everything organized and prints out a leaderboard every month. The point-system is on a large scale, awarding 5,000 points for doing a smaller tasks such as finding an example of irony. I think gamification in this sense is excellent  for encouraging students to read.

This teacher's work makes me wonder about other ways gaming can be brought into the classroom. One option I've been testing out is a website called ClassCraft. ClassCraft is a classroom management point-system that has been gamified. When you create an account and class, you can choose or create things that students do in the classroom to lose or gain points. Students are able to choose their characters, with each type of character having special advantages. An example includes how the Warrior class has a skill called "hunting" that allows him to eat a snack in class.

The website offers preset items, such as "recite a poem if you fall in battle" but you can change them. I personally don't believe in using literature as punishment because I don't want my students to hate it, so I changed my tasks to things like "Push in all the chairs before leaving." Below is a video explaining a typical day in ClassCraft:

ClassCraft offers a fun, gamified alternative to classroom management that I think students, especially in the middle level, would positively respond. With so many schools going 1:1 and incorporating technology in the classroom, I hope one day try this website out with my students.

Writing Rules

When it comes to writing, everyone seems to have some collection of rules they like to blow the dust off and offer to people who didn't ask. I am not exception. To me, when I see a student's eyes shine with that light—that bright creative energy that buzzes in the air— I immediately want to offer them something to keep it alive. As a teacher, writer, and student, all  have to offer are five rules.

1. Write Every Day 

I remember first hearing this as a student and thinking, "Ha, yeah right. And where do I find the time for that?" The problem was all those years ago, I thought writing only came in the form of fiction stories. Time has proven that to be untrue, that nearly anything can be writing. Here, many professors and peers recommend journaling. Again, I can picture myself at 18 years old, flopping my neck back and whining an "Euuuuugggh. Do I have to?" But journaling does help. It gets one in the practice of writing everyday, which is a skill in itself that needs to be flexed. In addition to practicing the skill of writing, journaling gives people the opportunity to process everything that has happened to them that day. This gives a person better insights into their own beliefs and allows them the chance to sift through their daily experiences, pick up each memory, and see if inspiration can be gleamed from them.

Now believe me, I know writing everyday is hard. And that everyone is so busy all the time and how can I possibly even begin to think about writing when I have this to do and this and this and—

Take a second. Breathe. Everything will be alright. Writing every day does not mean writing for hours on end. It can be a page. A paragraph. A stream-of-conscious poem. Whatever.

To help me write every day, I like to use games. My favorite thing to encourage me to write is an app called Fighter's Block. It is a game that lets you choose your character and the monster you will fight. You enter in your word goal, click fight, and off you go!

I personally prefer to change the speed settings and monster attack ability down to pathetically slow and weak to give myself a better chance. Here is what the pages looks like when you are actually writing:

This app is a lot of fun and acts similar to the tried and trusted Morning Pages activity. For those who don't know, Morning Pages is when you sit down in the morning and hand write three pages worth of words without ever letting your pencil leave the paper. The purpose is to help push everything inside your head out, like meditation. And usually people find some of the coolest ideas within those stream-of-conscious garbles. What I like most about Fighter's Block is that I can type almost as fast as I can think, allowing for me to write more in less time. I also really appreciate that the app saves my words for me. All in all, I recommend this app to anyone who wants to write every day, but needs to obey a time constraint.

2. Read Like a Writer

What does reading like a writer mean exactly? It means reading not only to enjoy the content material, but simultaneously being aware of and absorbing craft techniques. To put it simply, read to steal stuff you like. Now I don't mean plagiarism and stealing intellectual property, but rather mimicking or borrowing techniques on how to write something. For example, I read Kat Kinsman's memoir, Hi, Anxiety. Pictured below is my paperback copy, lovingly tagged in all the places I found techniques or examples of beautiful description:

A photo of my copy of Kinsman's Hi, Anxiety

 As I read and enjoyed the content, I was also reading to see how she wrote about things, specifically her use of white space. White space can be a fickle thing among writers; some love and some hate it. I personally love it! But I overuse it, so I picked up Kinsman's memoir with the sole intent of annotating how she used it, among other things. As I read, I saw how Kinsman used white space specifically to draw attention to certain lines that contained reflection, regret, or foreboding. She used it like clockwork to create suspense that, ironically, became predictable and showed me that one must be precise and stingy with white space.

To summarize, it is not enough to write; one must also read in order to write.

3. Show, Not Tell

What is the best way to draw readers into a narrative? Instead of merely talking at them, show your readers everything. Immerse them in the scene. Tantalize the senses. It's not enough to say, "She was scared." Or write "'Get out of my house!' Robert said angrily." Draw the reader in. Show them, don't tell.

"She was scared" becomes "She clenched her trembling hands tight into fist and jammed them into her coat pockets. She bit her lip and stared at her worn-out shoes, hoping the man stomping by overlooked her."  More details leak in that adds characterization, suspense, and moves the plot along. Let's try another.

"'Get out of my house!' Robert said angrily" transforms into "Get out of my house!" Robert bellowed. Veins bulged and crawled up the side of his neck like wrangled tree roots. His nostrils flared and his eyes raved wildly in their sockets as his face flushed red." As you can see, more details help the reader draw a better mental picture, thus keeping them interested.

4. Know Your Audience 

This more so pertains to publishing but is still a good thing to keep in mind while writing. What "Know Your Audience" means is, don't try submitting your fantasy-vampire-unicorn fiction short story to a literary magazine that specializes in travel essays. Shop around. Find a journal or magazine that fits your style and work.

5. Revision ≠ Editing

There is one point I want to stress here: Revision is not the same thing as editing. The best way for me to differentiate between the two is this:Editing focuses on grammar, sentence structure, and the nitty-grtty mechanics of writing in the English language. Revision is examining a piece for effectiveness. Does it keep the reader's attention? Am I showing or telling? Does this scene go here or somewhere else? Does this description make sense and paint a clear picture? Though different, both are important to the writing process and being a writer.