Marshall+Memos+2011-12

Dear Penn Center Readers,

Lindsay Shafer has asked me to add you to the list of Marshall Memo subscribers, courtesy of the Penn Center for Educational Leadership (PCEL) as part of your participation in the Distributed Leadership Program.

Welcome! I'm attaching the current issues. The Memo should start arriving regularly every Tuesday.

For access to back issues and a search engine that can locate articles by topic, author, etc., just go to www.marshallmemo.com and log in by typing Penn in the e-mail box and Center in the password box.

I hope the Memo is helpful.

Best wishes,

Kim Marshall

This week's quotes and articles come from The New York Times, NPR, American Educational Research Journal, Center for Education Policy, Teacher, and Newsweek. The headlines:

- Learning to be "smart" in kindergarten - Keys to increasing students' motivation - Incorporating social and emotional learning in literature classes - Can cell phones and social media be useful classroom tools? - What makes so many kids fat? 

This week's articles come from Harvard Business Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, The New York Times, Elementary School Journal, Principal Leadership, and Teaching Children Mathematics. The headlines:

- What does it take to be a charismatic leader? - New skills that leaders must acquire - A "conversational" leadership style - When procrastination makes sense - and when it doesn't - Helping quiet children get the most out of school - Can computers score student writing as accurately as humans? - Reading Recovery, small-group instruction, and RTI - When pre-teaching is helpful and when it's not <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- A contest on the U.S. Constitution <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Math games that get kids moving

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This week's articles come from Education Week, The Education Gadfly, Educational Leadership, The Reading Teacher, and Knowledge Quest. Here are the headlines:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Research on adolescent multitasking <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Later school hours for sleep-deprived teens <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Thoughts on racial and economic integration of schools and classrooms <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- What to look for in a new teacher <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Ten pieces of advice for rookie teachers <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Robert Marzano on how to build students' self-efficacy <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Reading comprehension: ten principles <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- School libraries that welcome students - and those that don't <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Websites with digital books, stories, and poems <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">- Book recommendations from the International Reading Association

This week's quotes and articles come from Education Week, The Boston Banner, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Educational Leadership (more next week), Professional School Counseling, and Phi Delta Kappan. The headlines:

- The surprising difference that gender-neutral classrooms can make - What it takes for a rookie teacher to succeed - How to welcome a new teacher into a school - A different way to detect bullying in a middle school - With teacher evaluation, less is more, says Mike Schmoker - A rude student helps a college professor see the light - A Massachusetts school sets up its own innovation venture fund - Pathways to hope - How much change will the Common Core math standards require?

This week's articles come from Catalyst Chicago, Teaching Exceptional Children, Review of Educational Research, Harvard Education Letter, and Harvard Business Review. The headlines:

- Getting assessment right in the Common Core era - Five ways to collaborate with families of students with disabilities - What counts most in second-language instruction - Dealing successfuly with students who have mental-health challenges - Shaping children's behavior with well-chosen words - Dealing with a rival in the workplace - Should rookie managers be collaborative or bossy? - What kind of during-the-day break is most energizing and helpful? - Looking over your shoulder isn't good for your IQ

On deck for next week are the new issues of Kappan and Educational Leadership.



This week's articles come from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wharton Leadership Digest, Harvard Educational Review, Huffington Post, Education Week, and The New York Times. The headlines:

- Assessments that produce real learning - Better than postmortems: after-action reviews - Teacher evaluation that improves classroom performance - Teacher evaluation done right - Boston students push to include their opinions in teachers' evaluations - More from the Measures of Effective Teaching study - Project-based learning in an Oregon alternative high school - How Washington has affected K-12 education in recent decades - Teen births decline



<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">This week's articles come from the Harvard Educational Review (more next week), Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Language Educator. The headlines:

<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- The best strategies for improving what goes on in classrooms <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- A discussion about teachers and teaching <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- How much can schools affect the wealth/poverty gap? <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- Leadership lessons from Brookline, Massachusetts <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- What habits of mind do students need to be successful? <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- Improving civics education in American schools <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- Robert Marzano on using movement to improve learning and attention <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- A new explanation for the STEM gender gap <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: start;">- Websites on French and Spanish learning

This week's articles come from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Gadfly, Educational Leadership (more next week), CABE Journal, Educational Horizons, The Reading Teacher, and Middle Ground. Here are the headlines: - Ideas for improving teaching at the college and K-12 level - How colleges and schools can work better - Making school "grades" more accurate - Preparing students for college and career success - Beefing up career and technical education in high schools - Helping students achieve "civic multilingualism" with religion - The wisdom of John Wooden - How to deal with bad interview questions - When teachers should or not should not speak up - Classroom steps to developing students' vocabularies - Websites with origami instructions, science content, and a video book report contest

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's articles come from American Educator, American School Board Journal, Teachers College Record, Reading Today, The New York Times, Education Week, Teaching Children Mathematics, and Principal Leadership. The headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A critique of discovery/inquiry/constructivist/problem-based teaching <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Ten principles of effective instruction <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Douglas Reeves on the "buy-in" myth <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Minuses and pluses in a California parent outreach program <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Replacing round-robin reading with effective practices <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-A prize-winning playwright whose stage is now a Georgia classroom <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Children's books with a global theme <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Ideas for fine-tuning summer reading programs <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Helping elementary students grapple with real-world data <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">-Websites on combating underage drinking, Google jockeying, and middle-level chemistry



<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's articles come from Education Week, American Journal of Education, The New York Times, Teaching Exceptional Children, Exceptional Children, Elementary School Journal, and the Center for Public Education. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- State policies on releasing teacher evaluations <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A study of teachers' attitudes on testing and performance evaluation <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- What do teacher teams do when they "look at data"? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Getting frequent feedback in college classes <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Tips for co-teaching <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Early math skills as key to later success <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Strengths that may accompany dyslexia <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The success of two-way bilingual programs <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Helping students write persuasive essays <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The importance of high-quality writing prompts <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- What happens to high-school students who graduate late? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A college information website <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Happy spring! This week's articles come from Harvard Business Review, The Education Gadfly, Educational Leadership, and Principal's Research Review. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Leadership lessons from Steve Jobs <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- How the most effective teams communicate and work together <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- What happens to team performance when the heat is on <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Undermining the teaching of evolution <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Ten keys to getting reluctant readers reading <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Teaching difficult books <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Principals as social-justice leaders <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Online young-adult literature <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A TED talk on "grit" by Angela Lee Duckworth <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's quotes and articles come from Teacher PD Sourcebook, a Fred Jones flyer, JESPAR, Principal, Educational Leadership (more next week), Teaching Children Mathematics, and American School Board Journal. Here are the headlines: <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Applying "high-reliability organization" theory to a struggling school in Wales <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A middle school raises the bar and gets results <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Six literacy experiences children should have every day <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Using vignettes to develop culturally responsive teaching <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Mathematical reflections on "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally" <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- "All the research says..." - but does it really? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's quotes and articles come from Education Week, Kappan, The Reading Teacher, and a Rand Corporation study. The headlines: <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Major problems with value-added test-score evaluation of teachers <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- How to reduce students' anxiety about tests <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Getting higher-level responses to reading passages in classrooms <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A first-grade teacher uses a "practice page" in interactive writing <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Hyperbole as a tool to motivate reluctant writers <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Mike Schmoker on the preconditions for effective PD <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The success and failure of new principals in six urban districts

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's quotes and articles come from Harvard Magazine, The New York Times, NJEA Review, Kappan, Educational Leadership, Education Week, Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Letter, Education Gadfly, District Administration, NYC Educator, and Education Update. The headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Is lecturing a dying instructional method? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Two phases in turning around a failing school <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- What neuroscience and psychology say about "brain-based learning" <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Personalization 3.0 - using technology with a human connection <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Helping people get better at walking in others' shoes <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Inclusion in a Boston elementary school <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- More on releasing teacher test-score data <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Robert Marzano suggests three commitments to students <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- How to get commands obeyed in the classroom <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Websites with STEM resources and videos of students talking about motivation



<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Memo 425 - that means we're half-way through the publishing year. Astonishing! This week's articles are from the New York Times, Kappan (more next week), The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, Reading Today, Education Gadfly, and Middle Ground. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- New York City releases teachers' "value-added" ratings <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Bill Gates on public release of teacher ratings <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- What works - and what doesn't - educating male students of color <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- "Reality pedagogy" to engage black male students <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The role of school libraries in closing the racial achievement gap <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Five virtues that schools should teach and model <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- How to spot a blossoming teacher leader <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The right questions for a candidate to ask an interview committee <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Making students' oral language central to instruction <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Preparing students for unfilled technical jobs <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Six children's book recommendations <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Online learning for Kansas fourth graders <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Websites on teachable moments, integrating LGBT issues, anti-bullying skills, and storytelling



<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's quotes and articles come from Newsweek, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Reading Teacher, Educational Leadership, Educational Horizons, and The Language Educator. The February Kappan, focused on educating African-American males, is on deck for next week. Today's headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Tennessee struggles to get teacher evaluation right (I couldn't resist making an editorial comment on this article) <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- How can we accelerate the improvement of U.S. schools? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A low-tech intervention: collaborative reasoning <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Pennsylvania students write a weekly letter to their parents <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Using the arts to leverage academic achievement <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Dealing with testing hysteria <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A different way to group students by achievement <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Robert Marzano on using writing to support understanding <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Websites on MOMA, the world's art museums, virtual math manipulatives, foreign-language flashcards, and clipart



<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Today's articles come from Educational Leadership, The Reading Teacher (more from both of these next week), Principal Leadership, Education Week, and The Atlantic. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- To differentiate or not to differentiate, that is the question <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- What all students need from all teachers <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Classroom language that opens students' minds <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- How fluency can be a powerhouse in reading instruction <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Shadowing high-school ELLs to boost academic language <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Supporting ELLs in school <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The Common Core State Standards' emphasis on "close reading" <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- State-by-state rating of science standards <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A principal's impact over time



<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's articles come from Middle School Journal (an outstanding issue), Teachers College Record, Reading Research Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, Education Gadfly, and Principal Leadership. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A middle school uses on-the-spot assessments to differentiate <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Leading effective math discussions with students <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Using multiple-choice questions and clickers in math classes <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Making writing real for young adolescents <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- The challenge of teaching academic language <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Stop wasting time with low-yield interview questions <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Learning from failure <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Parents who choose not to collaborate with their children's schools <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A new study of New York City's small schools <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- A website on African-American history

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">This week's articles come from The New Yorker, Education Week, Middle School Journal, The New York Times, and The Language Educator. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Why brainstorming doesn't work - and what does <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Ten steps to turning around a struggling school <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Principles for differentiating instruction for ELLs <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Value-added accountability in non-tested grades and subjects <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Building background knowledge in young adolescents <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Should elementary schools teach handwriting? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Research casting doubt on single-gender classes <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">- Hans Rosling with a low-tech video on population growth



<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This week's articles come from the New York Times, The Learning Principal, a Wallace Foundation report, Teachers College Record, The Education Gadfly, American School Board Journal, Quality Counts, Reading Today, GoTeach, and Knowledge Quest. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- David Brooks on what it takes to be a great leader <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- A systematic way for principals to support teacher teams <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- A Wallace Foundation report on effective school leadership <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- An underemphasized dimension of the principalship <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- British school inspection criteria <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Applying "Moneyball" principles to schools <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- How each state is doing on K-12 educational policies and results <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- A first-grade teacher uses iPads in the literacy block <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- What is an appropriate reading-level goal for grade 3? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Tweeting history <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Websites with flipped classroom concepts, a bullying carton, and free graphic novels

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">As you gathered, my sending software broke down last week and I had to send the Memo from my laptop as I moved from place to place. I was so frazzled that I put the wrong Memo number in the title box (418 instead of 419). I found a fix, and hope things will get to you smoothly and on time this week.





<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This week's articles come from Harvard Education Letter, Harvard Business Review, The Reading Teacher, the Center for Public Education, and Principal Magazine. Here are the headlines:

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Moral education in schools <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- How mindset affects happiness - and productivity <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Building students' motivation to read <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Getting more from primary read-alouds <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Using puns to enhance ELLs' language development <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Is the amount of time students spend in schools the key variable? <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on practice, winning, and leadership <span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- A superstar teacher on principals and teachers

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">It's time for my annual reminder about the Marshall Memo's intellectual property guidelines. It's okay for you to clip and share with colleagues any number of individual articles - as long as you include the original author/publication citation and mention it's a Marshall Memo summary. It's not okay to share the entire Memo with others, except as a one-time sample for potential subscribers. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Happy New Year! This week's issue has a lot on the theme of happiness, with articles from Harvard Business Review (more next week), Harvard Educational Review, American Educator, Better: Evidence-Based Education, Educational Horizons, and the New York Times. Here are the headlines:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- How important is happiness on and off the job? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Four keys to a thriving workforce <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- How to foster candor <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- The writing road to reading proficiency <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Truly preparing students for success in college <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- A non-pullout approach for struggling readers <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- What works best in elementary reading instruction <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Teachers' religious faith as they work with diverse students <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- A report on merit pay from the business world <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Teens learning about the birds and bees online

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This week's Memo is two days later than usual and shorter, too - definite signs of a family vacation in progress! The articles are from the Journal of Staff Development, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, and Education Update. Here are the headlines:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Asking students what they think about their teachers <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Keys to inspiring the troops <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Increasing students' creativity <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- How to deal with students who look only at their grades <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Students' Internet indiscretions coming home to roost <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">- Statistics on teen pregnancy



<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This week's articles come from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, ASCA School Counselor, Teaching Children Mathematics, and Phi Delta Kappan (more next week). Here are the headlines:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-More-effective use of clickers in college classes <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-A college professor wrestles with the problem of student absences <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Including culturally responsive pedagogy in teacher evaluationsUsing scary prank videos to talk with students about online ethics -<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Helping fourth graders understand measurement <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-California high-school students learn about the world's religions <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Supporting religious-minority students in schools <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Eleven U.S. Supreme Court decisions on religion in public schools <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Websites on Brainology, Face to Faith videoconferencing, religion facts, and a self-assessment on religious beliefs



<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This week's articles come from Educational Leadership, Teacher PD Sourcebook, Professional School Counseling, The New York Times, and Principal Leadership (more next week). Here are the headlines:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Getting the most from each special-education dollar <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Does co-teaching work? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Minority-group dis-proportionality in special-education classes <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-High-school students' beliefs about career success <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Providing instructional coaching when coaches are laid off <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-A high-school library takes shape <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-The "flipped" classroom <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-More on the Khan Academy <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-A California district's blog on Khan Academy work <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-iPad apps for special-needs students <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Free assistive-technology software to help students with writing <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Cautions to students about who might see their electronic content <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Contests on political courage and improving the environment



This week's articles come from the New York Times, Educational Leadership (more next week), Reading Research Quarterly, Review of Educational Research, The Reading Teacher, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Perspectives, and Education Update. Here are the headlines:

- Three ways to make homework more effective - Extending learning time without breaking the bank - Getting the biggest instructionoal bang from technology bucks - How reading can support science literacy - and vice-versa - What happens when all students take algebra? - Problems in guided reading: too-difficult texts and too much support - How valid is RateMyProfessors.com? - Why sleep is so important during adolescence - What's needed to be a global citizen in the 21st century - Web resources for global teaching



This week's articles come from the New York Times Magazine, Harvard Business Review, The School Administrator, Responsive Classroom, The Reading Teacher, and Knowledge Quest. Here are the headlines:

- The birds and the bees on steroids - What our use of certain words can reveal - Personalizing two Missouri high schools - A superintendent learns where the buck stops - Ideas for reducing misbehavior - Helping first-year teachers succeed in elementary literacy classrooms - Improving fluency without drudgery - Teaching students to "turn and talk" more productively - What are the highest priorities for a school librarian? - Online resources for school librarians - Making the most of historical fiction storybooks - A radio program on middle-school kids - A leveled reading website.



This week's articles come from Kappan, Teaching Children Mathematics, The Language Educator, The Education Gadfly, The New York Times, Education Week, and Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center. Here are the headlines:

- Mike Schmoker on building a coherent curriculum - How KIPP schools get results - Third-grade teachers learn how to use math interim assessments - A comprehensive wrap-around program for high-risk youth - Facebook pages as a tool in high-school language classes - How will technology affect the teaching profession? - Is she America's most experienced principal? - Learning from downstream data in Kentucky - Early warning systems for high schools



This week's quotes and articles come from Principal, Newsweek, Kappan (more next week), Educational Leadership, Middle School Journal, Education Gadfly, The New Yorker, and The Great Courses. Here are the headlines:

- What happened to the "apps" that made America great? - Addressing the rigor gap in schools - A Minnesota high school reforms its grading policies - Should practice work be graded? - Rethinking homework - Tips for improving teacher-made tests - Project-based learning done right - Addressing the "good-parenting gap" - A follow-up on Atul Gawande's article on coaching - History-changing events - Young child risk calculator website



This week's articles come from Newsweek, Teaching Exceptional Children, Educational Leadership (more next week), Education Week, Principal Leadership, Middle Ground, the BBC, and Google Art. Here are the headlines:

- Can young people learn to defer gratification? - Ideas for students who suffer from test anxiety - Thomas Guskey on overcoming obstacles to better grading - Tips for adopting standards-based grading - The power of having students re-do disappointing work - A model for turning around struggling Kentucky high schools - Asking multi-level questions about texts - Reading historical fiction in literature circles - Websites on world population, Google's new art project, real-world math, and resources for standards-based grading



I hope you survived Halloween! Today's articles come from Harvard Business Review, NJEA Review, Journal of Staff Development, R&D Alert, American Educator, Harvard Education Letter, Illinois School Board Journal, and The New York Times. I'm behind on magazines, and will try to get to the new Educational Leadership, Middle Ground, Principal Leadership, and Reading Teacher next week. Today's headlines:

- Four metaphors for improving leaders' performance - Value-added evaluation of teachers - can it work? - A principal's insights from shadowing a third-grader for a day - Three Texas high schools reform classroom instruction - How early-college high schools prepare at-risk students for college - Insights on learning foreign languages - The power of teachers watching classroom videos together - Guidelines for educators' electronic communication with students - A report on children's TV and electronics use - Buyers beware! Math textbooks aren't yet aligned with Common Core



Today's articles come from the New York Times Opinionator, Education Week, The School Administrator, American School Board Journal, Newsweek, and Middle Ground. The headlines:

- Bringing a new ethos to school sports - and the classroom - Teachers evaluating teachers - Keys to effective professional learning community teams - A guaranteed curriculum in a Louisiana district - What makes superstar teachers effective? - Fostering a sense of wonder in classrooms - Steven Pinker on good conquering evil - Douglas Reeves on dealing with complexity - What kind of parent involvement helps children the most? - Websites on getting children writing books, the Civil War 150th, explanations, sign language, and combating youth drinking



This week's articles come from a strong issue of Kappan, Teachers College Record, The Education Gadfly, The New York Times, Educational Horizons, and The Language Educator. Here are the headlines:

- Predicting and preventing classroom problems - Collaborative problem solving - An alternative to top-down school management - A Goldilocks analysis of assessment - Standards-based report cards in Kentucky - How is federal accountability faring? - Over-hyped materials - What not to do after a bad day - The impact of absenteeism on teaching and learning - Websites with teacher videos, global knowledge quizzes, identifying trees, treasure hunting, and Spanish games

MarshMemo406

Happy Columbus Day! I got some good news last Friday: my teacher and principal evaluation rubrics were accepted by the New York State Department of Education and are on their website for use (free) in schools statewide:

@http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/practicerubrics/

This week's Memo articles and quotes come from Newsweek, The New Yorker, Educational Leadership, Wharton Leadership Digest, Edutopia, Elementary School Journal, The Reading Teacher, and Educational Researcher. Here are the headlines:

- Atul Gawande on coaching - The instructional coach as an equal partner - "Pull" versus "push" feedback to adults - A Minnesota literacy coach in action - Instructional rounds - How to teach so skills and information stick - A study of writing workshop in a Washington elementary school - Understanding literacy research - A study of LGBTQ youth in Wisconsin secondary schools - A Salman Khan video - Websites with literacy coaching tools and math computer games

MarshMemo405

This week's articles come from the New York Times, Huff Post Education, Principal Leadership, Education Week, American School Board Journal, ASCA School Counselor, and Science. Here are the headlines:

- David Brooks on the shortcomings of trying to teach empathy - A better way to deal with e-mail - Dylan Wiliam on the power of classroom assessments - A veteran New York City principal shows how it's done - Homework: the good, the bad, and the ugly - More on "flipped" classrooms - A Massachusetts school addresses its boy/girl achievement gap - Supporting students after trauma and loss - Preventing youth suicide - Debunking single-sex education - MY school versus OUR school - Online video lessons

MarshMemo404

This week's articles come from Reading Today, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times Magazine, Education Week, GO Teach, and Middle School Journal. Here are the headlines:

- Applying Toyota's lean-management principles to knowledge work - In order to succeed, students first need to learn how to fail - Howard Gardner on pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness in schools - Two chemistry teachers "flip" their classrooms - Going back to basics with writing - Connecting school mathematics to everyday life - Recommendations of books with an international flavor - A website with college admissions steps

Note that the TIMSS website has a new feature: you can now download these really first-rate middle-school math and science classroom videos from eight countries: http://www.timssvideo.com.



This week's articles come from the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Tempered Radical Blog, Kappan, The New York Times, Middle School Journal (more next week), The School Administrator, and Knowledge Quest. Here are the headlines:

- The powerful effect of teacher collaboration and stability - A North Carolina teacher on how to make formative assessment work - A counterintuitive approach to dealing with leadership challenges - Remembering a childhood battle with dyslexia - Two approaches to the same middle-school science content - What do administrators do if students text during a school crisis? - Stretching the school library mission - Websites on myths, video game-making, and nutrition



This week's issue draws on Kappan (more next week), Educational Leadership, Chronicle of Higher Education, Principal, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Newsweek. Here are the headlines:

- A poll on Americans' attitudes about public schools - Structuring discussions on controversial issues in middle school - Teaching ethics and respect in a Boston charter school - Using Socratic seminars to teach ethics - Growing creativity in schools and universities - Fostering creativity - A budding teacher looks back on her elementary years - Dealing with emotional maltreatment of students - Addressing clicker cheating - Robert Marzano on discovery learning that really works - Research on student uniforms - What made Steve Jobs such an amazing CEO?



This issue wraps up the eighth year of the Marshall Memo - 50 issues a year X 8 = 400. How time does fly! I love producing the Memo and hope it will be helpful to you for many more years.

Today's Memo draws on Education Week, Principal Leadership, Educational Leadership (more next week), Foreign Language Annals, and Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (JESPAR). The headlines:

- A New York City teacher has a change of heart about testing - Strategies for checking for understanding - Restorative processes in schools - A student survey on bullying - Addressing a negative adult climate - Must grammar be boring? - What's working in a successful alternative school?

FYI, I just completed a thorough revision of my teacher and principal evaluation rubrics, and they are available (free, open source) at

@http://www.marshallmemo.com/about.php. If you want to see which cells were edited, click on the highlighted version of each rubric.

Best wishes for a terrific school year!