Real Talk Intervention

Blog Post: Why do you stay?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Mon, 21 May 2018 07:14:00 -0700

I don’t make sweeping generalizations because they are always wrong, but if you are a teacher, people have wondered why you actually do that.

The curiosity about WHY on EARTH you would choose this profession is so deep-seated that we even ask it of each other in job interviews.

I mean think about that for a second.

Can you imagine at NASA:

“So Christina, why did you decide to become an astronaut?”

Sitting before the medical review board:

“What motivated you to become a neurosurgeon?”

I guess I don’t really know – perhaps they do ask that sort of question, but it just feels kind of unlikely.

My husband’s an electrical engineer who works on fighter planes, and I promise you he has never had to justify to anyone why he chose THAT particular career path.

Yet I have justified my career path to everyone from job interviews to grant applications to friends at cocktail parties, and every single time everyone’s left feeling unsatisfied. I can feel them wanting my beauty pageant moment, and I can feel myself failing spectacularly because who, in the history of the sport, has ever answered one of those questions well?

It can’t be done because it just isn’t INTERESTING. Why did you decide to become a teacher? Why did you make a totally uninformed decision to strike out on a career path all those years ago? What motivated you five, ten, fifteen years ago to make a choice to spend the rest of your life working with other people’s kids?

I mean – BORING.

Let’s be honest - what brought me here was ignorance and optimism. Let me make it perfectly clear. None of us had any idea what we were getting into.

I’ve been a teacher now for twelve years, and the one question I never get asked – the question I actually ask myself every single day – is why do I STAY in this profession?

What makes me stay? THAT’S where the story is.

So I went out and asked the interesting question.

I asked my friends, my coworkers, teachers who’ve worked for only a few years, to teachers who’ve worked for twenty plus.

And here is why we stay.

“I can say things like ...... Because I believe every student is worth it, because I love math, because I get personal satisfactions on daily basis, because I have something valuable to contribute, because I enjoy learning, because I like to push people out of their comfort zone, because breaks allow me to be there for my own kids right? And even though each of these reasons is valid, the real reason is the fact that this job just MAKES ME HAPPY.”

“I was in the military, and I loved that. But I realized that I have a talent for explaining things in a way that people can get. I’m good at it, and I get to come every day, do something that I’m good at, and it makes the world better. That makes me feel good. And I get to go home to my own kids.”

“I stay because I belong with students. They hold me accountable, and I truly believe I am making society better.”

“On the best days of teaching, I wish the day would never end. On the most challenging days, I can’t wait to return to my classroom and take another opportunity to improve my craft. My students past and current, inspire me to continue the important work of education. The partnerships with parents and families give me an incredible amount of hope about the possibilities for our world. I remain in the classroom because I know I am not alone.”

“Teaching keeps me young. It is creative and challenging. Trust me. I was a systems analyst for a long time and that was nowhere as challenging and rewarding as this.”

Here’s the crazy little secret about teachers.

We all became teachers for lots of different reasons. Switching from careers, wanting more time with our families, a desire and passion to change the world … But what makes us stay, what keeps us here, in the classroom, with your kids, day after day, is one simple thing.

We absolutely love it.

Episode 26: All My Messes Live in Texas: The Special Education Cap in Texas

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 09:53:00 -0700

In 2016 the Houston Chronicle published a report claiming that the Texas Education Agency had imposed a "special education cap" on the percentage of a district's students that could be classified as special education. In 2018 the US Department of Education completed its investigation and found that Texas had indeed illegally set this cap at 8.5% and that this cap had caused qualified students to be denied services.

On today's podcast we talk about how,
yep, this is totally a thing,
a thing that we have experienced in our years of education, the students that were denied services because of this cap, and where we think this misguided, illegal policy came from.

We discuss why it is so vitally important that we serve our special education students, what is going on with dyslexia services in Texas, and where we go from here.

If you work in special education, we'd love to hear from you! Comment on this blog, on our Facebook page, or email us at realtalkintervention@gmail.com.

Listen to us here or subscribe to us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 25: Intervention with gifted and talented students

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 10:10:00 -0700

Your at-risk student is looking for your support. Your GT student is looking for a challenge.

We've talked a lot about intervention for your struggling students, but what do you do when you have gifted and talented students who are struggling?

The struggle may look different when you're working with advanced courses and high achieving students, but the struggle is real all the same.

Today on the podcast we have veteran AP teacher, multiple Teacher of the Year winner Valerie Minor on to talk about how she intervenes and differentiates for advanced students as well as what she's learned in her transition into a special education co-teach setting this year.

You can listen to the podcast here or follow us and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.

Give us a like on Facebook, rate or review us, and please share! We love to hear from our listeners!

Episode 24: Why do you STAY a teacher?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 09:48:00 -0800

All of us have been asked the question at one point or another.

What made you decide to become a teacher?

You've been asked it in job interviews, where the right answer seemed critical.

You've been asked it by incredulous family members, where the right answer seemed impossible.

You've been asked it by students, where the right answer seemed loaded.

We've all got our response memorized. Whether that response reflects your deeply felt, inspirational path into the classroom, the safe-for-work, sanitized version of your winding road towards respectability, or is simply a rehearsed tale that carefully avoids saying "I don't know why I do half the things I do."

I don't know about you, but I'm bored by my story. It's not particularly inspirational, and, frankly, it's not particularly interesting.

You want to see into a teacher's soul? Don't ask us why we started.

Ask us why we stay.

Why do we stay in a career that puts many of us below the federal poverty line?

Why do we stay after school day after day, night after night, sponsoring UIL teams, supervising clubs, buying doughnuts, and falling asleep on the couches in the break rooms?

Why do we stay in a job where politicians legislate seemingly every.single.thing we do, while the entire country comments on it?

Why do we stay after Columbine? After Sandy Hook? After Parkland?

Because we do stay. We stay for years. Many of us in the same classrooms, in the same hallways, in the same schools.

Why do YOU stay?

In today's podcast, we talk about Parkland.

And isolation in a school culture.

And violence.

And inspiration.
Connection.
Community.
Education.

And why we stay.

Click the link here to listen to today's podcast or find us on iTunes or Google Play and subscribe.

And please leave a comment below telling us why YOU stay.

Blog Post: What Happens After

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 07:59:00 -0800

What Happens After...

2/14/2018

5:50 PM

Another 10 hour day….I never knew I would have to wear so many hats at one job. Exhausted, I walk in the door of my home and fall onto the couch. Time to switch off, turn on Facebook, pictures of cats and babies.

Only instead of a smiling baby, there’s a woman embracing a child. She has an ash cross on her forehead and her mouth, silenced by the photograph, screams only in my mind…not my child….not mine!

My husband interrupts my moment of national connected horror. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’ve all had the flu for the last month, and we finally have a babysitter and a night to go out to see The Greatest Showman.

9:45 PM

Humming “This is Me”, I wait for my husband to get out of the bathroom, and what else would I do in 2018? I grab my phone, mindless scrolling time.

The reactions are starting to feel familiar.

Thoughts and prayers.
Thoughts and prayers don’t work.
Stop trying to capitalize on a tragedy.
Gun control doesn’t work.

And underneath it all, buried beneath the loudly passionate comments, the white noise hum .“We didn’t do anything when this happened before, and we won’t do anything now.”

But my husband is coming out of the bathroom – FINALLY - and its Valentine’s Day, and a school night.

2/15/2017

8:10 AM

School doesn’t start for twenty minutes, and in the copy room, the line of teachers is already pretty long. We start to talk about it.

As we always talk about it. After.

“Well, what do you expect? Of course they will come to schools…we have a big GUN FREE ZONE’ sign outside.”

We are all silent.

11:20 AM

I’m in a PLC. Abruptly I feel hotness spreading around my neck and face. This room is in the interior of the building. I am stuck in this windowless painted cinder block room. No closets. One exit. Nowhere to hide but the desks.

I feels like I want to laugh and cry simultaneously, but I keep staring at the door. I can’t take my eyes off of it.

My colleague suddenly asks my principal what admin is doing or thinking after yesterday. He tells us about everything that school did that was right.

It still happened.

This student, a victim of foster care and loneliness, felt like his way to make himself heard was to show us. He was sad. He was lonely. And like many others who express sadness as rage, he acted out to hurt those who would not help him heal.

My principal promises us that our culture of connectedness, that we support and encourage in hundreds of ways, is how we prevent this type of tragedy. This will not happen to us because we are doing things right.

The same colleague mentions all the exterior doors to the school. There have to be at least 50.

I just keep staring at that one classroom door.

9:50 PM

It’s getting harder and harder to unplug and Facebook is not helping.

An old student posts about putting soldiers in classrooms. It feels so surreal to me, because when I knew him as a teenager, this student would have HATED the very idea of having a police officer roaming our campus. He had a sweet heart, but he had a history of getting in trouble with the police, and let’s say questionable after school activities. How would he have felt if his school was like a prison that didn’t trust him?

But he is not a teenager now. He is a parent. He has a little girl.

2/16/2018

7:15 AM

My son was out sick all last week with the flu, and he is getting dressed for his first day back.

As I put together his lunch, I ask him, in that happy mom voice, if he is excited to get back to school and see all of his friends. He says, “Well I only have three friends.”

He doesn’t talk much about school friends. “Oh yeah? Who are your friends at school?”

“You’re my number one best friend, mom. Then I guess Julian and Gabe.”

Me. And two kids from his old school. Where he doesn’t go anymore. My little five-year-old boy.

Lonely.

Episode 23: The Curious Case of Gender in Educational Leadership

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 13:38:00 -0800

In the midst of our wider, cultural conversation about women, and power, and leadership, and power, let us pause for a moment to consider the quite curious case of gender in education.

Of course, education is an historically female driven profession - for much of the last century it was, in fact, one of the few jobs a woman could even realistically perform. That history continues to influence our profession today. 76% of classroom teachers remain women.

As women slowly take on larger and larger roles in industries all over this country, education sits as an - actually rather large - island. An experiment if you will, of sorts - an enormous, functioning machine - a bureaucracy, a power structure - inhabited almost exclusively by women.

The lazy among us often joke how the world would be different, how much better it would be, if it could be run by women.

Well, education gives us a glimpse into what that world might actually be like.

And apparently we'd just give control over to the men?

The gender inequity that exists in all other power structures in this country, continues in education. A mere 13% of superintendents are women, and surprise, they're paid demonstrably less than male superintendents, and hardly half of our administration are female.

The statistics are hardly worse than the rest of the country, true, but ... isn't it just somehow even more appalling in 2018? This World War 1 factory floor filled with female workers, while the men look down hardly seems aspirational.

But what, exactly, is perpetuating this inequity?

In our podcast here we discuss societal messages to women leaders - Lean In, ask for a seat at the table, be assertive - and how those messages, and those leadership behaviors, may be keeping you from succeeding, in, not only a female-dominated workforce, but with male leaders used to a female dominated workforce.

Listen to the podcast here or find us on iTunes and subscribe.

If you're a teacher, a teacher-leader, or an aspiring teacher-leader, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Discussed in depth is Adam Grant's book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. His TED talk on Givers and Takers will get you thinking.

Episode 22: Your Educational Technology WishList

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Wed, 3 Jan 2018 11:49:00 -0800

Well my friends and colleagues, welcome to 2018! Welcome to the second half of our year ... the LAST half of our year!

Are you back at work? Are you sitting in professional development? Are you currently being trained on the latest piece of life changing #edtech that your district has bought for you? Don't you wish you could find a piece of educational technology that would ACTUALLY change your life?

What are the things that you wish edtech would for you?

On today's episode we talk about what we wish tech could do for us as teachers, what pieces of technology we're currently finding helpful for at-risk students, and ask the question most won't dare to ask - do our millennial students actually prefer digital learning opportunities?

Give us a listen and share your experiences with educational technology here on our blog.

Listen to our episode above, or find us on iTunes. If you like our show we appreciate likes and reviews on iTunes.

Episode 21: Know Thy Student: Differentiation Made Simple

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Fri, 1 Dec 2017 10:07:00 -0800

On today's episode, we have a special treat -we are joined by our guest, long-time teacher, first time author Brendon Lowe, who speaks with us about his new book, Know Thy Students: Differentiation Made Simple available now on Amazon right here. Differentiation made simple? We're in.

Brendon comes to the tricky topic of differentiation as a secondary educator, who can speak to the particular difficulty of differentiating in the overcrowded, content-driven high school classroom.

His system teaches teachers how to use data to quickly assess where students are in a learning standard based on their performance on each Bloom's Level within a standard.

This method of empirically quantifying variables that may seem unquantifiable creates a snapshot of students that teachers can use to modify instruction, modify assessment, and wow their administration.

To learn more, listen to the full episode here, or as always, download and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 20: YOU are enough. Empowering the you in EdUcation

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 08:48:00 -0700

Hey teachers.

We've got a subversive message today.

YOU are enough for your students.

Drop the professional development. Drop the instructional strategies. Drop the trainings.

It's not that.

It's not pedagogy.
It's not curriculum.
It's not co-teaching.
It's not graphic organizers.

It is YOU.

On today's episode we talk about the empowering, amazing, humbling power that is being a teacher. Take fifteen minutes today to listen to our podcast to remind you that no matter what you do in the classroom, because YOU are doing it, you are making a difference.

Listen to us here, or download us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 019: A Data Driven Classroom - Personalized to YOU

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:58:00 -0700

In today's episode we discuss what a data driven classroom can ACTUALLY do for you. What does state wide, school wide, or even classroom wide data actually mean to you? Can you really use data trends to inform your teaching? Does that even make sense?

Listen to our new episode here or where you listen to your podcasts.

As always if you like our podcast please subscribe or rate and review us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 018: Start the school year off right with our podcast!

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 07:21:00 -0700

Real Talk Intervention is back!

We took a summer hiatus to refresh our hearts and souls and prepare to return to school, intervention, and podcasting.

But it's August now, school is back in swing, and on today's episode we discuss how to get a great start to the new year. In our conversation we move beyond the First Day of School, policies and procedures, and dig into what you can start implementing right NOW at the beginning of the year that will seriously improve your classroom for the rest of the year.

Start the year out right - subscribe to Real Talk Intervention on iTunes and Stitcher this year for inspiring content for your high school at-risk learners.

Episode 17: The controversial science standards - the state of evolution in Texas

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 06:40:00 -0700

In today's episode, we take on the Texas science standards with our friend John Long, a former AP/IB/PAP biology teacher.

We take on how we differentiate instruction both for at-risk students and for students who really need to be gearing up to take AP classes in a few years. And, of course, we address the ongoing controversy over those re-written evolution standards in Texas. How do those standards change our teaching? Does the wording of the standards provide an opening for creationism in the public schools?

Listen here, and don't forget to subscribe to our email list or on iTunes and Stitcher.

Episode 16: Who Writes the TEKS?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 07:39:00 -0700

In today's episode we speak with two women who served on the Texas Education Agency's standards writing committee for the brand new English Language Arts TEKS. They shed light on who it is, exactly, that writes these standards we all follow, how involved the state assessment department is with the standards, and they give their opinions on how their work came out in the end.

Referenced links in this episode include:

Dr. Revelle's opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News where she criticizes the final ELA TEKS.

The vertical alignment of the new ELAR TEKS.

Additional resources that support the content of this episode that you may enjoy include:

Are Common Core and the TEKS Really That Different?

ACT Standards

Texas College Readiness Standards

(Pod)Casting a Net for Student Engagement

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:58:00 -0700

Try incorporating student-created podcasts into your classroom to inspire and engage your students. Learn how with our introductory course.

Podcast Episode 15: Where do the standards come from?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 6 Jun 2017 12:53:00 -0700

In today's episode, we discuss the philosophy behind the standards. How can one set of standards for every content possibly satisfy all the different educational outcomes a student might want to achieve? This month we're looking at the philosophy behind the standards, wondering how the standards align to college and career readiness standards and college entrance exams such as the SAT, and talking to experts in the field of English and science standard writing.

Listen to our episode here, or download us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Texas Holds Students With Disabilities to a Higher Standard on State Exams

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Sat, 3 Jun 2017 20:18:00 -0700

Let’s just call it like it is. 2016-2017 was not a great year for student assessment in Texas. Between the scandal of mis-graded STAAR tests, graders hired for peanuts on Craigslist, and large numbers of parents and students conscientiously objecting to even taking part in our state’s annual testing rituals, many Texans have been left wondering where, exactly, IS the accountability in our state accountability system.

But if there is one person who is keenly aware of where the accountability is, it’s the high school senior who’s taking a STAAR End of Course test. That senior needs to pass that test in order to graduate in that same month. That student is painfully aware that the STAAR test doesn’t care where he grew up, or who her parents are, or whether he is dyslexic or learning disabled or gifted and talented. Regardless of what challenges she faced or what advantages he received, everyone all sits down and takes the exact same test. That’s what TEA promises. All students take the exact same test. All students meet the same standards. Because that is what is fair.

This is a key feature of a standardized accountability system after all. Everyone receives the same chance. Of course, it is an undeniable reality that we do not all really receive the same chance. Some of us attend private schools. Some of us attend urban Title 1 schools. Some of us are dyslexic and words slide around on the page. And so some of us receive our tests with some types of approved accommodation.

Here’s a slide from a TEA presentation about STAAR test accommodations, and how these accommodations do NOT modify the content of the exams.

The STAAR online allows students access to the test on a computer rather than on paper. The online exam can scale up or down the number and type of accommodations a student receives. There may be a text-to-speech function for dyslexic students or students with visual impairments. For students who qualify as Limited English Proficient (LEP) the test may provide clarification on non-content specific vocabulary.

So although the accommodations the test provides may be different depending on which mode a student is using to take the test, the content of the test remains the same.

After all, if you can answer a textual analysis question on a reading passage, then does it matter whether the passage was on a window or on paper? If students had the same reading selections, the same test questions, and the same level of difficulty? In a standardized test system you don’t give students an unfair advantage by changing the way they access a test.

Except wait.

Pictured below are screen shots from TEA showing the conversion tables from raw score to scale score on the English II paper administration - and the online administration.

In direct contradiction to TEA's statements, these two tests- despite being exactly the same in content - have different passing standards.

For a student to pass the paper version of the STAAR English II EOC a raw score of 41 was needed. To pass that exact same test online? A 42.

A difference of one point. One wrong answer on a multiple choice question. Something so small and insignificant probably no one would have noticed.

No one that is except one senior. One senior in a North Texas high school who got a raw score of 41 on the online administration. And he failed. Many of his cohorts who were lucky enough to NOT need the accommodations ONLY offered by the online version of the test passed with that same 41 he received.

He noticed. And we’re talking about it.

Now TEA doesn’t admit, that we’ve seen, to “bell curving” these tests. Not that there would be anything inherently shady in adjusting scale scores on an exam every year to better fit those scores into a normal distribution. This is common standardized testing practice, and is, in fact, a useful tool to counteract tests with subjective grading such as an English test. Think of it this way - if one year all of the graders TEA uses are just unusually harsh, re-norming the scale scores will counterbalance their low marks. There’s nothing intrinsically unfair about norming tests.

But using different normalizing scales on a version of the test where students read the material on the computer rather than read it on paper?

If thats what TEA did here … and, let’s be clear, we believe that it is.

Look at the third column in the conversion table - the percentile. Notice that the raw score of 41 conforms to a percentile of 38 for the paper-based, and 42 to 38 for the online. All the students whose score was below the 38th percentile state-wide failed the test - for paper-based that was students who scored below 41. For online it was below 42. This is a dead giveaway for norming.

So if that is indeed what TEA did, let’s consider the implication behind choosing to fit online scale scores into a different normal curve than a paper-based test. The students who take the online version of the STAAR exam are those students who meet the state’s stringent requirements for receiving assessment accommodations. These are students who, most usually, meet medical requirements for receiving accommodations. Or they are students who have been speaking English usually for less than three years. Historically speaking scores on the online version of the STAAR exam have averaged lower than the scores of the general population who takes the unaccommodated paper based version.

So why would TEA choose to normalize the online version of the STAAR test to itself rather than include it with the paper based test?

There’s one logical prediction. The online test should skew lower since the average raw score most likely will be lower. Students should have an “easier” time passing when taking the online test - easier in that the raw score required to pass should be lower.

That’s not what happened here. Instead, these results imply, our most at-risk student population actually out performed our general population on the STAAR test. And at least one of them failed because of it.

TEA, we need answers. We need clarity. No one we’ve spoken to has been able to provide us any comprehensible response as to what has happened here. We’ve been told the test was “easier”. But you said the test was not easier; that it covered the exact same content. We’ve been told this is just responding to the “mode” of the test. Are you implying that students who are receiving medically necessary accommodations - accommodations such as reading less than 50% of the question and answer choices aloud, and NONE of the reading passages - confers an educational ADVANTAGE on the students taking the test?

And if it is that you are just “bell curving” the exams, and perhaps felt that doing these exams separately would help our most vulnerable students, and this was a strange and unpredictable backfire … why are you doing that? Why assume that these students need you to modify the passing standard for them in any way whatsoever - higher or lower? Our students with disabilities may need additional support taking your test, Texas. That does not mean they are incapable of meeting your expectations.

What is going on here? Texas students, parents, and teachers NEED to know.

Special Episode 03: How do you solve a problem like state testing?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Thu, 18 May 2017 07:18:00 -0700

Accountability measures force us to take students not just from where they were to somewhere better but all the way

We have been very vocal here at Real Talk Intervention about our support of school accountability measures, standardized testing in general, and the high school STAAR EOC tests specifically. Last month we took action and spoke before the Texas legislature in support of school accountability, specifically against HB 1333 The Teaching Over Testing Act.

When we returned to our school from that trip, word of what we had done traveled fast. Many of our colleagues cheered on us, others weren't such fans of our opinions though they appreciated our moxie. But what really struck us was the reactions of the students - ours and other teachers - who watched the video of our testimony. A group of students came to both of us, stood before us, and said "Thank you. Thank you for telling them we weren't ready to graduate."

Once students exit the doors of our high school that is it.

We hear a lot of stories of the stressed out third grader who is struggling with anxiety about these tests. But we are seeing the 19-year-old, who is failing their senior level classes, who has no idea what's being taught, because they are still reading at a third grade level. Those 19-year-old students have been suddenly confronted with the reality that all these years of school have not been just free babysitting, but are actually filled with information and skills that they desperately need to go out into the world and make their dreams come true.

Once those students exit the doors of our high school, that is it. Standardized measures of accountability force us to not just take students from where they were to somewhere better but to take them all the way. And every single student needs to go all the way if they're going to compete.

In today's podcast we discuss the conflicting feelings and realities of the elementary and secondary campuses when it comes to standardized testing, and we give our suggestions for changing The Teaching Over Testing Act so that it could still help elementary school students while not having such a catastrophic impact on high schools.

If you like our show please don't forget to subscribe to us on iTunes or Stitcher. We also really appreciate rates, reviews and comments.

Episode 14: Become a happier teacher today!

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 9 May 2017 07:57:00 -0700

May is #happyteacher month at Real Talk Intervention! Standardized testing is behind you, and before you lies the most rewarding time to be an educator - June, July, and part of August.

It's time to recharge those batteries by thinking about what you really LOVE about your profession. What makes you a #happy teacher? Stefanie and I share some tricks and tips from our eleven years of working with at-risk students that we've found make our lives, and our students' lives, just so much happier on this week's podcast.

Special shout out to one of my favorite podcasts Happier by Gretchen Rubin for the inspiration and formatting of today's episode. It's a fanisode!

Never miss an episode of Real Talk Intervention by subscribing on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 13: Wait ... why are we doing this again?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Sat, 29 Apr 2017 08:03:00 -0700

April is a tough month. The weather is getting beautiful, teachers and students are getting burnt out, and end of the year assessments are looming.

We spent the month of April casting a critical eye on education - from teachers to the government - and now we're casting that eye on ourselves.

It's time for some Real Talk - why do WE do the things we do in the classroom? We ask each other about some of the questionable practices or mistakes we've seen each other make over the years. We are two very different teachers, in two very different contents, who make very different mistakes.

If you're an optimistic innovator in the classroom who finds herself in tears at the end of some days like Stefanie or a grumpy cynic who rolls her eyes during professional development like Sarah you'll hear your voice, and your experiences, in this one!

Listen to us here.

Music courtesy of The Creative Commons.
http://www.bensound.com

Special Episode 02: Real Talk at the Texas Capitol

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 12:15:00 -0700

Today's special episode was recorded live and on location inside a Senate meeting room as we prepared to give testimony against Texas House Bill 1333, colloquially known as The Teaching Over Testing Act.

This bill, which aims to reduce the number of standardized tests given by Texas to the federal minimum while also drastically reducing the emphasis these tests have on school accountability, has been well received by the state anti-testing movement.

We, however, stand with the many civil rights groups, the Texas Association of Business, and the many, many nervous and silent teachers who know that the anti-testing, anti-accountability movement's well-intentioned, but misguided, efforts damage the hard work educators are doing to create a more equitable society across Texas.

To give a voice to all the educators across Texas who feel as we do, we traveled to the state legislature with the support of a non-profit educational foundation group called Texas Aspires to give our testimony against this bill. We discuss our experiences at the State Capitol and share our testimony with you here.

Listen to our podcast here.

Music courtesy of The Creative Commons.

http://www.bensound.com

Episode 12: Why are we doing this? High school graduation edition

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 13:42:00 -0700

The human face of the school accountability movement is one no one wants to see.

The human face is 18 years old. He has attended school for 90% of his Mondays through Fridays. She has ridden the bus for twelve years. Attended all the classes. And done it all with the entirely reasonable expectation that at the end of this journey lies the cap, the gown, and the high school diploma.

And even the hardest of hard liners on the school accountability movement does not want to tell that student that at the end of these last twelve years there will be ... nothing. No one wants to tell anyone they can't achieve dreams.

Particularly not politicians.

So things get ... tricky.

A little schizophrenic.

Requirements for graduation? Or are they more like guidelines really?

In this week's podcast we discuss high school graduation requirements, and how Texas politicians are avoiding the public relations nightmare of thousands of students being denied high school diplomas.

Listen to our podcast here.

Or subscribe to us on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 11: What you're wishing you could say in the teacher's lounge

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 12:36:00 -0700

Let's be real - there can be a LOT of complaining in education.

You're sitting in the teacher's lounge, just trying to eat your noodle cup and chat about last night's episode of The Bachelor, when in comes THAT teacher. That guy who's always mad; the lady who yells at her students every day at 2:45 like clock work. And you feel for them. You do. You used to be that teacher. Heck, some days you ARE that teacher.

You listen to them sympathetically - because we've all been there- , but you really wish you could just say - "Okay but why are you doing that?" Why are you making life more difficult for yourself with that policy, with that assignment, with that rule? If you would just change your mindset, switch your perspective, bend just a little bit your life would be easier, your students would be happier, and you wouldn't be so stressed out all the time.

Well this is Real Talk Intervention - and we. went. there. Are the things you're doing in your classroom stressing you out? Well ...

Why are you doing them??

On today's episode we confront some of those rookie mistakes teachers are making - that we all continue to make year after year - that stress us all out so much that, really, if we would just stop, we'd see increased student engagement and motivation.

We all need a slap upside the head every once in awhile.

Listen to what you wish you could say to that teacher in the lounge - or maybe what you need to say to yourself - here.

Music courtesy of The Creative Commons.

http://www.bensound.com

Special Episode 01: Are you enjoying test review season?

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Thu, 6 Apr 2017 08:56:00 -0700

Its April, and that means just one thing - less time spent outdoors in the beautiful spring weather, and more time spent inside preparing detailed test reviews before your STAAR exam in May, your class's final exam, or, if you're SUPER lucky - BOTH!

Test reviews are that special kind of terrible - not only are they frequently no fun for teachers or students, but they also usually feel extremely ineffective. The kids who need to do them usually don't, and often no matter how much effort we put into them we don't see the fruits of that labor result in increased test scores.

Well here it is you guys!

We may have fancy district titles on our two-page job description, but we actually do all day, every day is TEST. REVIEW.

On today's very special podcast we're talking about our most successful test review strategies, the research behind them, and how a few tweaks to your test reviews will ignite your test scores right now.

Listen to our special episode test review podcast right here.

Are your test reviews not working? Here's how I get THAT kid in your classroom to pass his tests!

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Thu, 6 Apr 2017 08:42:00 -0700

“Test prep” is a bit of a dirty word in public education. Time spent in a classroom doing explicit test preparation work is implied to be time wasted – time spent, not on educational goals, but on hazy “good test-taker” skills. Skills like eliminating the distractor answer choices, using the answers from the previous questions to inform your guesses, getting good sleep the night before – to be honest I’m not sure exactly what behaviors our “good” test takers engage in. I only know that we feel we need to spend time actively teaching our students how to be one.

And, the truth is, we do. Your intervention students are not good test takers. You DO need to spend time actively teaching them how to become good test takers. But not by spending class periods doing intensive, specific “test prep” – whatever that might be. A good test-taker is a good test-taker because he or she is able to connect together a wide range of information and apply it to the context of a question. A bad test-taker cannot connect the activity you did in class to the vocabulary words you assigned last week to the test question today. Which leads to that most frustrating of feelings - you feel they do know the material, so why can't they pass the test?

Effective test prep is creating explicit connections between the content you’ve taught and the test questions. Once you give students the connections – and a strategy to remind them how to use those connections – you will see a marked increase in your test scores.

Here’s how I increase biology EOC scores with my school’s most at-risk student populations by creating explicit connections between vocabulary and the test.

Step 1: Identify your key vocabulary words in your targeted standard

Let's take as an example biology standard 9A: Compare the structures and functions of different types of biomolecules, including carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids.

There are some clear non negotiable vocabulary that I know for a fact the STAAR EOC is going to test. Some of them are given to me there in the standard

Carbohydrates

Lipids

Proteins

Nucleic acids

But those words themselves have non-negotiable vocabulary words that a student must know in order to understand those concepts. For example:

Carbohydrates-> sugars

Lipids -> fatty acids

Proteins->amino acids

Nucleic Acids -> nucleotides

Identify your non-negotiable key vocabulary words. Be precise and targeted, and don’t overwhelm them with vocabulary. We don’t need them to know everything just halfway. We need to them to know what they know very well.

Step 2: Create a concept map.

To see my sample map in its entirety click here.

Or read on to see how I use this map with my students.

The structure of this map here illustrates the biomolecules listed in the standard with a link to the compounds that make them (the structure: sugar, fatty acids, nuleotides, and amino acids) and what the molecule does (the function: creates energy, stores energy, genes, and traits).

I’ve included some distractor words – such as the chemical names for sugar end in –ose – to lower the probability that the test will “trick” my students. To lay the groundwork for the next targeted standard I’ve included vocabulary words that move beyond the scope of the standard – beginning the spiraling process for cellular parts (nucleus, ribosomes, cell membrane, mitochondria).

If you know biology content, this map makes sense to you. If you don't know biology content - it's okay. Although the goal of this map is to teach biology content - you can still use the map to answer test questions even if you're not perfectly clear on the content.

I use concept maps to create explicit mental and spatial connections between the vocabulary words and the words they are most likely to be linked to on a test. Not only does the map make the connections between disparate vocabulary words explicit, it will warm your heart when you see your students look up from their tests and start using their hands to redraw the locations of the words in the air.

Step 3: Get out the highlighters and practice using the content in context.

I have to break my students of some of their poor test-taking strategies they’ve learned in the past. Highlighting is a very common test-taking strategy. And it is without doubt the most effective strategy for content-based exams. And also the most useless if not taught properly. Our students will use this strategy in every way from highlighting an entire question, highlighting the words they don’t know, or highlighting the directions. I always get rueful laughter from my students when I tell them I can always tell who is going to fail a test when I see them highlighting like crazy.

Students must be trained to highlight only the vocabulary words you have taught them have connections to the answers. By using this strategy your students will a) actually read the question and b) critically read the question. And once they’ve done that, you’ve done it.

Let’s look at this question from a released biology EOC.

The reading level of this question is very high. It is filled with intimidating words to make your intervention students give up and put their heads down, along with very clever distractors to confuse your higher performing students. Let’s see how this question looks with key vocabulary words highlighted.

Now instead of struggling with a difficult reading question, the right answer pops right out. Protein is directly linked to amino acids, and the other answer choices do not contain any connections. The correct answer is B. (Science people – notice that even if you had included adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine on this map connected to nitrogen base, it wouldn’t have mattered. The answer would still have been obvious.)

Let’s try another one.

Another difficult question with a lot of distracting science vocabulary meant to intimidate and confuse. This question is not technically linked to 9A - but thanks to the intentional spiraling of other standards, combined with a student who confidently knows what they know, the correct answer is still revealed.

Highlighting reveals that what this question is looking for is an understanding of how the mitochondria creates energy. Using only this concept map, two answer choices reveal connections: F and J.

For choice J students see that mitochondria is connected to energy, that ATP is another name for energy, and that glucose ends in –ose so it is a sugar. Even if the learning stopped right there, students could feel more confident in selecting J than F since F contains the incorrect "carbon dioxide".

The explicit connections enabled your struggling readers to fight through the questions and stay focused on what they know is true about mitochondria. The mitochondria creates energy from sugar. But it does that with glucose, not with carbon dioxide.

Now PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

This is test prep that works. Test prep that creates authentic learning experiences – even within the inauthentic confines of multiple choice exams.

· Students are actually learning the content
· They are learning how to apply the content
· They are passing tests and feeling successful

Don't defeat yourself and your students by thinking of high stakes test prep as a mandatory all-learning-stops time in your classroom. See it as a chance to target standard must-knows and let students realize how much they actually have learned in your class.

What Your ESL Certification Didn't Teach You (It's A Lot)

realtalkintervention@gmail.com (Sarah Underbrink and Stefanie Garcia) — Mon, 3 Apr 2017 11:42:00 -0700

I May Be Certified, But Do I Feel Qualified?

If you’re like us, you took your ESL certification test for one inspiring reason - your district mandated it. And despite the rigorous preparation provided by taking that test, we still felt unprepared for the actual reality of beginner and intermediate English learners in our classrooms. This year close to a million Texas students are classified as English Language Learners or ELLs, according to PEIMS data released by TEA. Teaching English Language Learners is certainly one of the biggest obstacles we encounter as high school teachers.

Districts throughout Texas have been, with varying levels of speed and enthusiasm, accepting this new reality. More and more of our students are actively engaged in the process of learning the English language - even though that may be not be what we are actively engaged in teaching them. The bald fact is that nowhere in the high school standards does it call for us to teach phonics, verb conjugation or the thousands of high-frequency words that make up the structure - if not the content - of our subjects.

This month we spoke with educational stakeholders at every level of ESL education - teachers, parents, and students - and we discovered a surprising truth. The secret to preparing your English Language Learners for success lies in …

The accommodation sheet you get at the beginning of the year.

Wait...Really?

Accommodations, of course, are not our favorite thing. And we deal with them literally every single day with virtually every single student. Yet after speaking with our three podcast guests - listen to a teacher/parent here, a student here, and an ESL specialist here - one thing was clear. It is the accomodations - but it’s not about what you do but why you do them.

Accommodations are not there to make the content “easier”.

Let’s break down the most common, most helpful accommodations, and how we should be using them.

Shortened Assignments/Extra time:

How We Use It:

On multiple choice tests, we strike out one answer. Instead of 20 vocabulary words, we assign 10. If an essay requires three examples, now they only need two. We give an extra day for reading the chapter.

Why It’s There:

You know that feeling you get every Friday of every week, where you think, “If I have to listen to one more ridiculous excuse for not turning in their work, I will move to Hawaii and never look back!” That deep soul tired that sends you, yet again, to the drive through line for dinner because that is just all the advanced planning you can take.

Brain fatigue is an actual neurological issue that results in forgetfulness, uncontrollable falling asleep, difficulty retaining information, and emotional turmoil. That is the feeling our ELs are getting every time they do work in English. Kids who are working hard to learn a language must read an English text, mentally translate the words, string them into ideas in their native language, and then process their reactions back into English. This fatigue is exacerbated by background noise and side conversations (otherwise called high school classes). The cognitive work required to filter and process all the different sensory inputs drains the brain quicker than a last generation iPhone the week after release date.

Your ELLs are using multiple brain “apps” to read, and they frankly can’t sustain it for very long. Their language centers have just not become background system processes yet. In the second part of our English Language Learner series, Ali - a brilliant refugee student who came to our schools speaking very limited English and graduated in two years - spoke candidly about the struggle of sustaining the mental energy needed for a five-hour English End of Course test. If you listened to Ali in that episode, you know that if he can hardly do it - it’s way too much.

How We Should Be Using It:

We certainly never connected the shortening of assignments accommodation to this reality of brain fatigue. Don’t shorten assignments to make them “easier”. Instead “chunk” them.

English Language Learners need just as many repetitions and opportunities to interact with content as we all do. So if you have twenty necessary vocabulary words, then you have twenty necessary vocabulary words. Don’t shorten the assignment by removing those words. But chunk them together. Are some of the words related to each other by theme? Are they part of a word family? Can they be chunked together and studied as a group? Can you use a word bank on your tests, or sentence stems for writing assignments that will take some of the burden off of their minds?

Another way to shorten assignments is actually to allow talking about it beforehand. Just giving your students talking time to process can help an ESL student feel more confident and comfortable with an assignment. And the repetition is a key variable in good learning practice.

Reducing the Reading/Difficulty Level:

How We Use It:

We take advantage of Lexile-leveled texts when available. Difficult reading passages are not assigned. We show movies or use summaries of difficult texts. Instead of assigning passages with “big words”, we simplify the vocabulary using descriptive language.

Why It’s There:

You would be surprised at how many words an ESL student will try to translate in their readings. We once watched a kid meticulously go through a paragraph assigned by a teacher, translating roughly 70% of the words she encountered. Can you imagine the brain fatigue this creates? The toll on comprehension? According to research, students must know 98% of the words they read in order to have a shot at understanding a text, let alone analyze that text.

How We Should Be Using It:

When you’re reducing the reading level of text, what, exactly, are you reducing?

Research shows that BICS develop quickly with ESL students. These are the basic 500 or so words that every kid knows in order to get their basic needs met. But CALP, the rigorous academic vocabulary needed to succeed in academic settings, comes much slower. When we reduce reading level, if we’re not very targeted, we end up sacrificing the necessary academic language - the CALPs - in our quest to remove the stumbling block BICS.

Simpler reading assignments run the risk of shortening or abridging academic vocabulary. The fact is that it is not helping your students to expose them to less vocabulary. All three of our guests used one word repeatedly - vocabulary.

Taking vocabulary shortcuts, like calling the numerator and denominator “top and bottom” number, may help students in the moment, but all you’ve actually done is push the necessary learning off to another point of time. A poor application of the “reading level” accommodation leads to that common complaint - “Well my students really KNOW the content, they just can’t transfer that to the test.” Often they can’t transfer their knowledge to a test because they learned the content but not the language. Don’t shortchange one goal to meet another.

If you’re reading a long, complex text - chunk it. What are the “must haves” in that reading? Assign those and provide vocabulary-rich summaries for the rest.

Texts are more comprehensible when they include shorter sentences, with fewer clauses, and a lot of context clues. As teachers, we can and should write up our lessons and lectures using grammatically simpler language and sentence structures, while utilizing academic vocabulary and context clues and pictures. Creating our own expository texts can be a great way to make sure the kids practice reading, follow up on the information you gave them, and have a study sheet for vocabulary in context.

Individual/Small Group Instruction:

How We Use It:

“Sheltered” classes with ESL students working together on specialized curriculum that is accommodated and modified. Pairing an ESL students with a classroom mentor student.

Why It’s There:

Sheltered instruction is more of a mindset than a class - a set of guiding instructional principles that ensure ELLs have access to lessons with explicit language support and academic task instruction. We teach students what to learn, how to understand it, and how to retain it. By its very nature, it requires a flexible and individualized approach to student learning and a pacing that is both academically challenging and that adapts to their burgeoning proficiencies.

How We Should Be Using It:

There is a significant difference between language competency and cognition. Just because two students are at the same English language proficiency level, does not mean they are going to experience equal levels of frustration or success in a class. A very bright student who would excel in a Pre AP class if they were just linguistically capable needs to have the accommodations that will enable him or her to learn the more universal content language as quickly and completely as a regular student.

Rather than using sheltered classes as an opportunity to slow down the pace of curriculum and instruction, these classes should be providing instruction at an accelerated pace and focus on the must have standards in the foreground, while keeping the nice to know standards to enhance or deepen understanding and skill in the background as needed.

Many teachers say they cannot differentiate for so many variables, but you don’t always have to. Your gifted ESL students have burning questions and curiosities that they want to know more about. Give them an opportunity to create their own learning goals. Some kids need a coach rather than a teacher, and adopting a sheltered individualized plan to address content goals can be done with conferences and and action plans can be the key to quickening student progress in content and language goals.

Linguistic Accommodations:

How We Use It

Kids get a Longman’s dictionary from the shelf as needed, or we allow them to use Google translate on their phones. If they raise their hand and ask, we come over and re-word directions for them. We make sure we use gestures, and we put pictures in our powerpoint slides.

Why It’s There:

According to research, it takes four to ten years to be able to own a new language. A high school freshman who started speaking English in elementary school is still well within that gap.

How We Should Be Using It:

Language acquisition is overwhelming. Students by necessity will make inferences and draw conclusions about the meaning of individual words in order to make it through complex texts without looking every single word up in the dictionary. In Love’s Labor Lost, Shakespeare said, “They have been at a great feast of languages, and stol’n the scraps.” Unfortunately these scraps oftentimes lead to erroneous, or less than ideal, conclusions that can dilute or completely destroy the meaning of the content.

All ESL students (and most intervention students generally!) should be directly taught high frequency academic vocabulary that will assist them in any content in addition to your contents’ vocabulary. For linguistic accommodations, providing an easily accessible copy of your content’s high frequency words that they can use with their assignments is much more relevant and user-friendly than simply providing a dictionary. For a place to start here’s Jim Burke’s list.

While Google Translate is undeniably great, don’t underestimate the power of the human voice - specifically your human voice. Then need to hear you pronounce words and use inflection that varies based on word context. (Are you entering a CONtest, or do you conTEST the police officer’s ticket?)

What it all comes down to is...

It’s not what you’re doing - it’s why you are doing it.

Accommodations can be frustrating at the high school level, where you’re overwhelmed with the sheer number of them, and they often feel like they are not actually doing anything at all. But with just a slight shift in perspective of how you view these accommodations you will suddenly find them making a huge impact in your students’ success.