Give Me Smore!

Give Me Smore!

 

Click the link above to learn about an app called Smore 

that allows users to make infographics, flyers, or splash pages.

The Math of a Zombie Apocalypse

The Math of a Zombie Apocalypse

 

Damian Cooper

Nya:weh to Candy Browatzke for sharing this page of videos and resources on Assessment by Damian Cooper.  Topics include:

What is our mission as educators in the 21st. century?

Grading student achievement/Encouraging students to complete ALL critical evidence of learning

Does the Drive to Quantify Learning Get in the Way?

Is there Life After Grades?

Frobenius Numbers

Education 1.0-3.0

This chart is from an article entitled: Schools are doing Education 1.0; talking about doing Education 2.0; when they should be planning Education 3.0.

Read the entire article by clicking here.

Leadership Qualities Teachers Want in a Principal

To read this article from its original source, click here, or continue reading the article in its entirety below...

Every year in the United States, an estimated 500,000 teachers leave their schools, with only 16% of the departures the result of retirement. The bulk of teachers leave for a variety of other reasons, including whether or not they perceive their school’s leadership to be effective.

Without strong leadership, it is much easier for good teachers to walk away, either to another school or another career. Let’s take a look at some of the leadership qualities that teachers most desire in a principal.

Builds a sense of community

Perhaps the single most important quality a principal can have is the ability to create a sense of community. Effective principals understand that the adults and children in their schools need a healthy, safe and supportive environment in order to thrive. A community-building principal works to avoid teacher isolation, negativity and resistance; instead, he or she encourages an upbeat, respectful and supportive professional environment. Positive solutions and growth are the norm, not the exception.

Knows how to hire good teachers

One of the best things a principal can do for his or her school is to hire the right teachers. In addition to making sure a candidate has a strong educational background and excellent references, principals can use behavior-based interviewing techniques to get a realistic idea of how well a candidate will perform in the classroom. Behavior-based interviewing operates on the premise that past behavior best predicts future performance. Typical questions begin with, “Tell me about a time when …” or “Describe your experience with …” and can be highly effective in determining how a candidate will handle real-life situations.

Fosters growth and professional development

When teachers are presented with a clear path to advancement they are more apt to stay at their current school. By providing in-school leadership opportunities – as well as by making professional development accessible, affordable and rewarding – principals demonstrate their commitment to helping staff members grow professionally and excel in the classroom. Also, good principals build on their teachers’ strengths, encouraging them to share knowledge, experience and skills with each other, as opposed to turning a blind eye to unhealthy competition or seniority-based inequality.

Advocates for the school to stakeholders

Nearly every educational framework policy depends on strong community involvement, so much so that the National Association of Secondary School Principals identifies community engagement as a core element of its leadership development agenda. Because a lack of resources is one of the leading catalysts for teacher attrition, principals need to be powerful advocates to their school’s stakeholders in order to gain greater access to necessary resources. Increasingly, schools understand that there is a direct connection between community and parent involvement and improved academic performance.

The primary stakeholders in any school community are families, staff, business partners and the public. Each of these categories requires different styles and approaches to engagement. For example, families may have language and cultural differences or an earlier negative experience with school officials. In order to encourage continued involvement and support, principals need to make a concerted effort to understand the priorities and preferences of the various categories of stakeholders.

Communicates Effectively

Good communication is one of the most crucial components of teacher satisfaction; the best principals will routinely examine their communication skills then apply a variety of styles through the school day. There are a few things principals can ask themselves in an ongoing effort to improve in this area:

Who did I communicate with today, even if it was for just a brief moment? (List every single person from kindergartener to visiting teacher.)

Are my reasons for communicating helping lead my school through positive changes and improvements?

Do I communicate in a way that contributes to meaningful problem solving?

Does my communication style help to strengthen working relationships among my staff?

What areas of communication are the most difficult for me? How can I work to improve in these areas?

Great organizations of all types require great leadership and this is especially true in education. In today’s evolving educational landscape, it is more critical than ever for principals to demonstrate to their staff, students and community that they have what it takes to guide their schools to success.

Rebuilding Through Education: A Conversation With First Nations Educator Troy Hill

The ETFO magazine ETFO Voice has done an article on one of our own First Nations educators, Troy Hill.
Click on the link to read the article from the original source or continue reading the article (in full) below:

Rebuilding Through Education: A Conversation With First Nations Educator Troy Hill

You gave a presentation at the ETFO Solidarity Study Group last year. What was your presentation about?

During the presentation, I talked about sharing knowledge about First Contact between European and First Nations people from an Indigenous perspective with students. My intention was to encourage teachers to engage with knowledge from our people instead of just about them – since these perspectives are often left out of the history that we teach our students. I talked about how we develop critical thinking about First Contact with the classroom and share Indigenous perspectives. My goal was for teachers to take away hands-on lessons they could easily incorporate into their teachings regarding our people.

I know that you came to teaching later in your career. How did you decide that teaching was what you wanted to do?

What inspired my journey towards a career change was meeting my father and knowing that for 30 years I had misplaced blame for my experiences. This meeting also inspired me to pursue my education. Through the Indigenous Studies Program at McMaster University, I learned more about the history of colonization of Native people and the impacts of residential schools over the generations, and this helped me explain and contextualize my own story. Armed with this knowledge, I wanted to both heal myself and share what I had learned from our old people and fluent Mohawk speakers with students in the education system. The education system benefits so much from obtaining the perspective of Native people.

How can teachers incorporate Aboriginal traditions/learnings into their classrooms?

Teachers can continue bringing First Nations knowledge into their classrooms by thinking critically about topics like First Contact, acknowledging who has written many of the history books, and embracing Indigenous scholars, Contemporary North American thinkers and what I call Turtle Island pedagogy. There are many perspectives from our people and picking up a book, an article, a simple local Indigenous news-feed on the Internet could integrate critical thinking into a classroom. Going further than teachings, I strongly urge school boards to seek out Native teachers to employ within their schools. And of course, keep developing your Indigenous portfolios by signing up for teachings through ETFO or Indigenous educational conferences.

Do Aboriginal students have different needs than non-Aboriginal students? If so, how can teachers take these into account in a classroom?

Yes, we do have different needs. Fortunately, we are arriving at a place where this question is being asked. We are every statistic calculated for limited success in education, i.e., health, socioeconomics, structural organization, lack of resources, I could go on and on. Basically Native students are the most likely to be pushed out of the education system, and where I have seen true success is where there is true representation of our people as teachers. Students need to touch, feel, see success; they need to see someone like them, coming from the same place as them to be successful. Asking the question “Do Aboriginal students have different needs” is a perfect place of recognition and a good starting point. It is important that teachers promote a safe environment for self-identification of our Native youth, making space for the First Nations students in your classroom to take pride in who they are and researching together to educate one another on the specifics of a child’s nation.

What are your challenges as a Native teacher?

Native people are arguably 3 to 5 percent of the population of Canada, and just as there could only be one or two Native students in the classroom, there are even fewer Native people in the staff room. Because we are such a small percentage of the overall population, and due to the underlying educational attainment factors, our people and our pedagogy are even more scarcely represented in the staff room. More Native teachers in the classroom would lead to greater sharing of differentiated knowledge. We are neighbours living side by side going down the same river as demonstrated in our Two Row Wampum.

We are at a beginning point in our relationship. We must remember that it was education that was the separation point, colonization and residential schools. Now we are both healing, beginning to listen to one another’s stories, our histories, and our relationship. As tough as it is for a Native student, it is the same struggle along this journey for our Native teachers.

I love what I do and feel fortunate for the opportunities that have been given to me. My hope is that we continue on this path of healing and listening and learning. I am grateful for this opportunity to speak from the perspective of a Mohawk man, a perspective that has been silenced for 30 years. So although my challenge as a teacher may be the same as our students’, my hope is that our students continue to get their voice back and I am feeling and seeing it happen each day.

Are there resources that you would recommend to teachers?

Having our people teaching in the classrooms and at every PD day is essential – people are the best resources. Check out GoodMinds.com, a Native-owned and operated business that features educational resources for schools, libraries, and the general public, for grades from kindergarten to post-secondary. They are located in Six Nations of the Grand, Ontario. As for book recommendations, have a look at Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message by Jake Swamp, illustrated by Erwin Printup. This read-aloud book is based on the Thanksgiving Address of the Iroquois people and reflects the Native American tradition of greeting the world each morning by giving thanks to all living things. I would also recommend And Grandma Said: Iroquois Teachings as Passed Down Through the Oral Tradition by Tom Porter, as a PD resource that talks about the major events embedded in Iroquois oral history and ceremony, from the story of creation, to the beginnings of the clan system, to the four most sacred rituals and the beginnings of democracy.

Troy Hill, Mohawk, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, is a Grade 7/8 transition teacher at J.C. Hill Elementary School, Six Nations. 

Kelly Hayes is the coordinator of Equity and Women’s Services at ETFO. 

100 SMARTBoard Lessons for Elementary

Thank you to Sean Junkins for sharing this page of SMARTBoard resources for elementary schools.  They are clickable to download and organized by subject and grade.

BASEF Public viewing day

Our staff and students are at BASEF speaking to the public and BASEF TV about their science discoveries. Many impressive projects and from what I hear, very impressive interviews. Awards ceremony is just an hour away. No matter what happens, we should all be very proud of their accomplishments. Thank you to parents and guardians and teaching staff that helped support the youth in their academic achievement.

Seven Must-Have Centers for Math Class Eye On Education

Seven Must-Have Centers for Math Class Eye On Education (click the link to see this article from its original source or continue reading the article in full below)

February 22, 2013

Teachers, coaches, and supervisors will learn how to help elementary school students build mathematical proficiency with the standards-based, differentiated, small-group instruction strategies in Guided Math in Action: Building Each Student's Mathematical Proficiency with Small-Group Instruction. Dr. Nicki Newton provides lots of actual templates, graphic organizers, black-line masters, detailed lesson plans, and student work samples. In this tip, Dr. Nicki shares seven must-have centers that can be used in an elementary school math class.

1. Basic Fact Center
   You want to be sure to have a center where students can practice their basic math facts. In this center, they can quiz each other on flash cards or sort the flash cards by specific strategies. 
2. Hot Topics Review Center
   In this center students review all the skills that they have worked on during the year so far and even skills from the previous year. Students practice money, time, rounding, graphing, and concepts skills in this center. Sometimes I tell the students what they have to work on in this center, but often I let them choose their own topics. I tell them to think about what they need to practice and get better at doing.
3. Geometry Center
   Students often will say that anything that isn’t green and equilateral isn’t a triangle or that any hexagon that doesn’t look like the one in the pattern blocks box isn’t a hexagon. So you need to have plenty of center activities that deepen their understanding of the attributes of two-dimensional shapes. I encourage teachers to put up a geometry center with Play-Doh, paint, blocks, and scaffolded activities where students can build and explore the attributes of shapes at a more complex level as the year progresses.
4. Word Problem Center
   In a problem-solving center, students can explore problems at the concrete, pictorial, and abstract level. They can take their time, think about the problems, and act them out with manipulatives, felt, and magnets. They can also write about their problem-solving process and model their thinking. I highly encourage teachers to have a problem-solving center with problems that take more than two minutes to solve.
5. Math Poem Center
   This is a fun interdisciplinary center. I believe in using math poems, math songs, and math picture books. In this center, students work on a project associated with one of these things that we are doing in class. For instance, they might work on individual versions of a poem or a story. They could also be working on a class math Big Book of a story or poem. They might be working on number writing. Poems help math to come alive.
6. Math Journal Center
   A math journal center can have students doing very powerful work. In the math journal, the students can explore concepts, work on projects, and really do some high-quality thinking. I encourage teachers to think of math journals as thinking notebooks that help students grapple with mathematical issues. Interactive math journals are an excellent tool for students to showcase their thinking. In these math journals, students make flipbooks, and accordion foldouts and pop-up illustrations of vocabulary to illustrate the math topics they are studying.
7. Math Vocabulary Center
   Math is a language and students need to know the words to be able to speak it. When teachers tell students to use their math words, they need to know which words to use. A math vocabulary center offers many ways to practice the words from prior units of study as well as engage with the words from the current unit of study. The students can play bingo, tic-tac-toe, match, and concentration as well as do word finds and crossword puzzles. There are also web 2.0 sites where they can make digital math vocabulary flash cards and play math vocabulary games.

Top 5 Apps You Want On Your iPad (Educator Edition)

Check out this blog post by Daniel Edwards on the best iPad Apps out there.

The Code

TV 411

Nya:weh to Candy Browatzke who discovered this website that has videos on real life situations where people use the skills we teach in school in their everyday occupation or family environment.  It's called TV411 and if you click this link it will take you to the math video section.

There you will find all sorts of examples from carpenter math, sports math, financial math, musical math and how it relates to what we teach in school, like fractions, ratios, measurement, etc.

Virtual Manipulatives from McGraw Hill

Here's an excellent webpage to call up for some math virtual manipulatives, game boards and other assorted visual virtual goodies.  I've added the website to the sidebar for ease of access.

The Future of Learning

Why Students Plagiarize

Thinking Math-ishly

How Mainstream Video Games are Being Used as Teaching Tools

Posted by Ian Jukes on February 4, 2013

“eSchool News offers up new parallels between video gaming and 21st century curriculum in this article. Learn how subjects are continuing to be applied successfully to the gaming platforms that kids love.”

via eSchool News

People who worried that the technology boom would lead to kids playing video games in class were right: In schools around the country, students are playing such games as “Minecraft,” “World of Warcraft,” and “Angry Birds”—and their teachers are encouraging it.

“Video games are not the great evil that people make them out to be,” says Trish Cloud, technology instructor at Torrence Creek Elementary School in Huntersville, N.C., where she created a popular “Minecraft” club.

Cloud is part of a community of educators who love gaming and want to share that passion to help students learn by introducing video games in class. Those educators say that good video games can be used as teaching tools to help students develop an array of skills—from writing and physics to teamwork and problem solving.

Lucas Gillispie, a former biology teacher in coastal Pender County, N.C., is a leader in this national movement. He helped to create a language-arts curriculum tied to “World of Warcraft,” and he launched a grant program for local teachers to incorporate “Minecraft” into their classes.

Those educators say that good video games can be used as teaching tools to help students develop an array of skills—from writing and physics to teamwork and problem solving.

He notes that the fast-paced, globally connected world of digital learning lets educators create new career paths and emerge as leaders, no matter where they work or what their job titles are. And that is exactly the kind of versatility teachers are trying to spark in their students.

What about parents, who might feel clueless and confused? Cloud and Gillispie say the answer is simple: Play the games with your kids.

“Just pay attention and be willing to set aside those tired stereotypes,” says Gillispie, now an instructional technology coordinator for Pender County Schools. “We’ve come a long way since ‘Pac-Man.’”

Learning in Azeroth

Gillispie, 37, grew up playing computer games. He enjoys talking with his high school students about gaming, and it was a student who introduced him to online role-playing games such as “World of Warcraft,” often known as “WoW.”

“WoW” players create an avatar who completes quests in the fantasy realm of Azeroth. They choose a profession, join guilds, and ally themselves with one of two warring factions—the Alliance or the Horde—then face creatures such as dwarves, orcs, and trolls. Players interact with others around the world.

Gillispie’s love of gaming led him from the classroom to the district technology job, where he created a “WoW” club for at-risk middle-school students in 2009. He teamed up with a New York teacher launching a similar club, and the two schools created a guild.

That experience evolved into the “WoW” curriculum, which is designed to meet the standards set in the new Common Core curriculum. For instance, one “quest” requires students to study riddle poetry and share their notes within the guild. They write their own riddle poems based on Azeroth, edit and critique each other, then take their riddles into the wider game world to challenge outsiders.

The free-form nature of gaming creates unexpected lessons, Gillispie says. Once, he says, a group of his students figured out how to cheat another player out of gold coins. The kids were triumphant until Gillispie confronted them about their ethics. They agreed to return the money and write an apology—and they were delighted when the other player commended their honesty.

“It was a moment for us to teach some morality in the virtual world,” he said.

Virtual Legos

While “WoW” isn’t graphically violent, it does involve battles, which might make it inappropriate for younger students.

Enter “Minecraft,” a game that pops players into various environments and requires them to construct shelter from roving “creepers,” spiders, and zombies. There’s also a creative mode that lets players build without attacks.

“It is an infinite sandbox made up of Lego-like blocks,” says Cloud, who learned about the game from her students and her own children, ages 10 and 13.

Cloud, a self-professed “Star Wars” geek, started playing “WoW” a couple of years ago—at age 50—and grew to love it. A teacher’s assistant, she was assigned to run one of Torrence Creek’s two computer labs. When the PTA bought 60 iPads, Cloud says, “It was love at first sight.”

When she announced the “Minecraft” club at the start of this school year, the 60 slots were filled in two days—with almost 40 more students on the waiting list. It’s an after-school club, but Cloud is talking to classroom teachers about ways to use the game in lessons. For instance, she has her older students research North Carolina landmarks and build them to scale in “Minecraft.” Sam Gilbert, a fourth-grader, has built a model of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.

On a recent afternoon, second-grader Ross Dorfman was tunneling deep into his world, while third-grader Maddie Kester built a house of diamonds. Maddie said when she’s waiting for dinner at home, she asks to use her parents’ iPad to play “Minecraft.”

“The dynamic nature of video games entices students in a way that simply working toward a grade might not.”

“It makes time go by fast,” she said.

Cloud calls that “flow,” a total absorption that characterizes people playing challenging computer games.

“If we can turn this in a way to take it and make it our own, there’s no limit to what they can do,” she says.

Angry algebra

The best games, whether digital or physical, motivate players to master skills, says Tim Chartier, an associate professor of math at Davidson College. Classroom math, on the other hand, can seem painfully abstract.

Chartier taught a session on math and pop culture for the Charlotte Teachers Institute, which brought together K-12 teachers from public and private schools. During one class, he mentioned that “Angry Birds,” a popular video game that involves catapulting cartoon birds at pigs, uses a parabola without air resistance for the red birds’ trajectory.

Kristianna Luce, a math teacher at North Mecklenburg High, seized that remark and started working “Angry Birds” into her algebra classes. Chartier built on her work to create teaching tools for using “Angry Birds” in algebra.

The dynamic nature of video games entices students in a way that simply working toward a grade might not, Chartier says. “Self-motivation does a lot to keep people moving forward,” he added.

Sharing ideas

As Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools works toward expanding digital access, the district has formal groups and central-office staff dedicated to sharing the best ideas about technology in the classroom. Cloud says a CMS technology specialist helped her develop the “Minecraft” club and ideas for linking the game to lessons.

But avid gamers are just as likely to be sharing ideas with online communities. Gillispie has a web page devoted to the use of “WoW,” “Minecraft,” and other games in education. Cloud ticks off a long list of websites and blogs she visits to check in with other educators using games. There’s even a “WoW” guild, called Cognitive Dissonance, made up of educators who share classroom tips while they play, she says.

Valerie Truesdale, who recently took CMS’ top technology job, says she’s fine with the array of alternatives to the traditional chain of communication.

“I think that digital learning and mobile devices are shaking up how everybody learns,” she said. “It’s all-the-time, everywhere learning. Everybody’s a teacher, and everybody’s a learner.”

GAME FOR SCIENCE: A unique virtual world of scientific discovery

GAME FOR SCIENCE: A unique virtual world of scientific discovery

Since February 2009, a number of museums have taken part in a unique collaborative effort: GAME FOR SCIENCE (http://www.gameforscience.com). This platform, a virtual world dedicated to scientific discovery, was developed by CREO Studios (www.creo.ca) with funding from the Canada Media Fund and 25 Canadian and international partners.

One of the keys to engagement in a virtual world is personalization. As they gain experience, students earn talent$, which they use to personalize their avatars with clothing and accessories. At users’ request, designers are pushing this personalization even further by offering players a personal space that serves as a science museum. Budding museum workers can now acquire artefacts, photographs, videos and sound files to create thematic exhibits they can invite their friends to.

In the virtual world, young people 8 to 16 years old choose an avatar and go exploring with their friends. They can go on quests, play entertaining games, and earn neurons and virtual money. A number of museums have used Game for Science to highlight games and videos produced as part of their project supported by the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), helping to increase the visibility and traffic of these productions. The platform, which receives 35,000 visitors a month, is attracting increasing numbers of Canadian, French, and U.S. teachers thanks to its free teaching resources suitable for elementary, high school, or collegial levels. A number of museums also take part in the GAME FOR SCIENCE Neuron Hunt, an inter-school contest that takes place throughout the school year. Sponsors offer prizes such as tickets and school visits for winning participants and schools.
Ideally, we hope to offer even more artefacts in the future, including objects presented by partner museums. Imagine if players could visit your exhibitions (the real ones) to acquire exclusive (virtual) artefacts provided by your institution. Because at CREO, we also want our virtual world to encourage players to explore the riches of the real world.

This article and link courtesy of the VirtualMuseum.ca Teachers' Centre.

15 Lesson Plans for Making Students Better Online Researchers

Now that oral communications and science fair projects are either well underway or a thing of the past, here are 15 Lesson Plans for Making Students Better Online Researchers.  Please give one or more of them a whirl and leave a comment to let us know how they went.  If there's one skill our students will definitely need in their future that we can certainly help them with, it is how to be a good online researcher.

A Standardized Testing Revolt

Posted by Andrew Churches on February 4, 2013

“This article from The American Prospect is worth a look. It all started when standardized testing took the spotlight in Governor Bush's Texas Miracle. Fast forward to today—after a series of new tests was recently introduced in the state, teachers and parents both are finally calling in Texas for standardized testing to ease up. ”

via The American Prospect

Over the past year, there’s been a steady and ongoing revolt in Texas. Not about secession or guns or the many other fringe topics that the state is usually associated with. This battle has been waged primarily by parents and teachers, and the demand is relatively simple—cut back on testing our kids. There’s been similar sentiments simmering in states across the country, but in Texas a new set of tests, put in place last year, sparked the outcry. Now, the push that began in school board and PTA meetings has finally reached the halls of power.

When the biennial state legislature gaveled in on Tuesday, it didn’t take long for newly re-elected Speaker of the House Joe Straus to mention testing. “By now, every member of this house has heard from constituents at the grocery store or the Little League fields about the burdens of an increasingly cumbersome testing system in our schools,” he said. “Teachers and parents worry that we have sacrificed classroom inspiration for rote memorization. To parents and educators concerned about excessive testing: The Texas House has heard you.”

In Washington, Bush modeled his No Child Left Behind legislation on the state plan, and around the country, testing became an increasingly prominent part of public education.

It’s quite a turnaround for the state that brought standardized testing onto the national agenda. In the 1990s, Governor George W. Bush implemented a series of statewide requirements. Running for president, he claimed the new accountability system led to dramatic improvements, particularly among poor and minority students, calling the results the “Texas Miracle”—though just how miraculous these gains were has since beencalled into question. In Washington, Bush modeled his No Child Left Behind legislation on the state plan, and around the country, testing became an increasingly prominent part of public education.

Now Texas is almost certain to scale back on testing, which has continued to expand since Bush’s time. Currently the state tests kids every year in multiple subjects between third and eighth grade. In fifth and eighth grade, children who fail are automatically held back. High-schoolers must pass a number of class-specific tests to graduate. The state uses the tests to evaluate the students and the schools. Many other states have a similar system, and plenty have gone even farther, using standardized test results to determine teacher performance and the like.

Meanwhile, the state has continued to update its tests. Student achievement has steadily declined under Bush’s successor, Governor Rick Perry, so the answer had to be better tests—right? New ones approved by the legislature in 2009 were widely considered an improvement. But they are also significantly more difficult, and they were scheduled to go into place for the 2011-12 school year—just as the state slashed an unprecedented $5.4 billion from public schools to avoid raising taxes. Many of the programs used to identify and help struggling children were cut from state and local budgets, and teachers were left to teach to a more rigorous test with fewer resources. As the huge cuts went into place, those already frustrated by the emphasis on testing pointed to the state’s $500 million contract with Pearson, the international corporation that does testing. The new tests threatened dire consequences for high-school students—under the new law, 15 percent of their final grade in a class was to be determined by their standardized test score in that subject.

Even before the tests and budget cuts went into effect, it was clear that a backlash was brewing. For rural communities, in particular, the public school is often the heart of the town, providing employment for many and a reason for families not to move away, so concerns about too much testing seemed to take on greater urgency. While most of the national anti-testing rhetoric comes from teachers’ groups and others associated with the left, in Texas rural Republicans took the lead. During the 2011 session, even as lawmakers were gutting education spending, one-third of the state House members, mostly Republicans, supported an amendment from Representative Larry Phillips of the small town of Sherman to get a waiver from the Department of Education and suspend testing for the next two school years. An East Texas GOP member filed a bill to create a total moratorium on standardized testing. Neither effort was successful, but both bills revealed the extent to which lawmakers were beginning to feel pressure from constituents.

By February 2012, the Perry-appointed state commissioner of education shocked the education establishment when he said the state testing system had become a “perversion of its original intent” and needed to be “reel[ed] back in.” Robert Scott, who’s since stepped down from the position, also said the state should not require 15 percent of a high-school student’s grade come from his or her test score. After some back and forth between Scott and the legislature, that requirement was postponed.

Many other states have a similar system, and plenty have gone even farther, using standardized test results to determine teacher performance and the like.

The 15-percent requirement may be struck altogether this year. That’s just one of the proposals to reform testing this session. Others include scaling back all the new testing requirements and changing how schools are assessed based on test scores. Much of the effort will likely come from Republicans—a significant shift from much of the country, where education reform is popular among most Republicans and an increasingly large number of Democrats like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In Texas, more than 800 of the state’s 1,030 school districts have passed resolutions severely criticizing the state’s testing system. You can bet most of those districts consider themselves pretty conservative. Some have pointed to the huge price tags to testing—by 2015, the state will have paid Pearson $1.1 billion for a variety of testing services.

Still, the picture for public schools in Texas is hardly rosy. Easing up testing may be one of the only bright spots for education advocates this year. Texas is last in the nation in per-capita school funding, but despite the enormous cuts from the last legislative session, Perry has urged lawmakers to focus again on tax cuts rather than increasing government spending. An ongoing legal battle over school funding may be the only hope for an increase in money for school districts. Meanwhile, many expect far-right Republican Senator Dan Patrick, the newly appointed chair of education who’s steadily grown a power base of like-minded conservatives, to push hard on measures for vouchers to use public dollars to pay for private schools.

Texas’ shift on testing could well have national repercussions. After all, it did more than any other state to bring the country into an era of Number 2 pencils and filling in bubbles. It might also be the state that leads us out.

A Student Created Video about Bullying

 

Hello everyone! My name is Odile Désaulniers, and I am a Secondary 5 student in Quebec City. I created a video about bullying as a personal project. The technique used is stop motion animation, which consists of creating a drawing for each part of a movement and scrolling through them very quickly. For example, in my video, I created 575 drawings which I animated at 5 drawings per second.

To me, bullying is an important topic which is not often given the attention it deserves. It is true that it is talked about often enough, but I have noticed that since it is often talked about, it tends to become part of everyday life and is made less important.

The goal of my video is to make people aware of this cause by making the message memorable. I wanted it to have a bombshell effect in our minds and for all of us to take away a message after watching it: we must act.

Thank you.
Odile Désaulniers

The Learning Life

Snow Days

Snow Days have become something of the past until that big storm we had a couple weeks ago.  Check out this time lapse video of that record breaking snow fall and how you can use it to prompt some math discussion and thinking with your students.  Adjustable for any grade level.

Practically Gifted

Thank you to Connie McGregor for sharing Bernie Beales' web resources from his workshop on Giftedness at our November PD Day.  Many of these websites are in our District Numeracy Plan and some are permanently added to the sidebar of this blog for easy use and access for teachers and students.

 

References and Resources

compiled by Bernard Beales, practicallygifted.ca
Problem of the Week:

Maths Starter of the Day (Australian)

Problem of the Week (Waterloo University)

Math Counts Problem of the Week
 

Fermi Problems:

The Math Forum

Elemath

How Many Licks? Aaron Santos, Running Press, 2009 ISBN 9780762435609

 

Math Contests:

The Maple Leaf Math Challenge 

The Caribou Math Contest

 

The Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest

 

Gauss, Pascal, Cayley, Fermat, etc. - Centre for Education in Mathematics & Computing

 

CNML (Canadian National Math League)

 

Thales, Byron-Germaine, Fibonacci, Pythagoras, etc. - Mathematica

ASMA (American Scholastic Mathematics Association

 

AMC 8, 10, 12 (American Mathematics Competitions)

 

OMO (Ontario Math Olympics)

Math Performances:

 

Math & Science Performance Festival

Webquests:

Thinkquest Student Designed Projects

 

Independent Math Projects:

Illuminations

Counter Intuitive Math Problems:

Fun Math Problems

Gifted and Talented Education

Brain Food (Lateral Thinking Puzzles)

General Math Enrichment Ideas:

NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics)
 

Hoagies' Gifted Education Page

 

OAME (Ontario Association for Mathematics Education)

NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children)

 

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

 

Prufrock Press

Figure This

Learning Goals and Success Criteria in Math

Learning Goals and Success Criteria in Math

Nya:weh to Candy Browatzke for sharing this blog post about the tricky nature of using Learning Goals and Success Criteria in a math lesson.  Obviously, the discovery and exploration of math needs to be preserved, so explicitly stating what we want to see students do upfront sort of defeats the purpose of constructing their own learning and concept discovery.

Often this leads to a fail safe method of using the Mathematical Processes as the success critera for the lesson.  We want to see students engaged in the processes in their learning of mathematics, and by doing so we can have them reflect on the criteria we want to see and hear from them as they problem solve.

I'll be checking into this blog more as this post that Candy shared seems just the tip of some great math discussion on the GECDSB Math Coaching blog.

Turnitin Webcasts

Here's a link to some upcoming Turnitin webcasts on a variety of topics from assessment to writing to engagment and plagarism.

We Need to Teach Students Sound Research Sources

HOW DO STUDENTS DO RESEARCH ONLINE? While the internet has been a boon for information access and availability, three out of four educators strongly agree that "search engines have conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily," according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project study entitled, How Teens Do Research in the Digital World. Most of the advanced placement (AP) and National Writing Project teachers in this study said students are "very likely" to use Google, Wikipedia, and social media sites for typical research assignments. Google or other online search engine (94%) Wikipedia or other online encyclopedia (75%) Social media sites (52%) Their peers (42%) Study guides (41%) News sites (25%) Print or electronic textbooks (18%) Online research databases (17%) A research librarian at their school or public library (16%) Printed books other than textbooks (12%) Student-oriented search engines(10%) * Pew Internet & American Life Project This is consistent with findings from Turnitin's recent research that analyzes the most frequently matched Internet sources (released in January) which show that Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers, and eNotes were the top three among secondary students. At the college and university level, the top three were Wikipedia, OPPapers (a paper mill), and SlideShare. Learn more about this study:

The Power of "Yet"

The Power of "Yet" Julie McNamara author of Beyond Pizzas & Pies: 10 Essential Strategies for Supporting Fraction Sense, Grades 3–5
published by Math Solutions

On a recent walk through my neighborhood I came across a father teaching his young son how to ride a bicycle. The father was holding on to the bike as the boy sat atop the seat, gripping the handlebars tightly. It appeared that the father was much more confident in the boy’s ability to learn to ride on his own than his son, as the boy clearly was not ready for his dad to let go of the bike. As I walked by them I heard the father say, "Don't worry, I won't let go until you're ready to ride on your own." Panicked, the boy responded, "OK, but promise you won’t let go. I CAN'T do it by myself!"

The panic and frustration were evident in the boy's voice, and dad appeared to be getting a bit discouraged as well. It was all I could do to hold myself back from walking over and whispering one little word in the boy's ear—"Yet." The boy was absolutely right. He couldn’t ride the bike by himself—yet. I yearned to let him know that just because he couldn’t do it yet, that didn’t mean that he’d never be able to. I wanted to tell him that none of us could ride a bike before we could, and then once we could we were on our way (literally and figuratively). I also wanted to tell him that he might not be very good at it at first but with enough practice and desire he’d be flying on his own before he knew it. I was a little worried that he would get discouraged if he wasn’t riding like an expert right away. I think we, meaning parents, teachers, and in Vygotsky's terms the "more capable peers" (Vygotsky 1978) often think that telling someone who is trying to learn to do something we're already accomplished at is easy. This trivializes both the efforts of the person who is trying to learn the new thing, and the "thing" being learned. A former student of mine shared this sentiment with me years ago, "Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first." I've never forgotten this phrase and it's reminded me through the years that lots of wonderful things that we learn to do throughout our lives may first seem insurmountable, but as long as we keep plugging along, sometimes through trial and error, often with a lot of help and maybe a few tears, we can do most of what we set our minds to. In addition, if we limit ourselves to only those things that are really easy to do right off the bat, we seriously limit our possibilities.

As I continued on my walk my thoughts, as they often do, turned to the teaching and learning of mathematics. Mathematics instruction in the U.S. has been characterized as "a mile wide and an in inch deep." Because of this, teachers are often pushed to cover topics at a breakneck speed, leaving students with the impression that mathematics is more about speed and application of the correct procedure than reasoning and sense-making. Years ago Alan Schoenfeld, a professor in both the Mathematics Department and Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley, found that high school students generally think that if they can't solve a math problem within ten minutes, they won't be able to solve it at all (Schoenfeld 1985). To this day a typical math class in the U.S. starts with the teacher showing students exactly how to solve a particular type of problem, followed by students applying the procedure they just learned to similar problems, and then checking their answers and doing more of the same types of problems for homework. Nowhere in this scenario do students learn to approach mathematics in terms of "What I can do now" and "What I can't do yet." The idea of trying different approaches and sticking with a problem over time, maybe coming back to it after some time has passed, is absent in most American math classes.

The first of the eight Mathematical Practices from the Common Core State Standards says that students "Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them” (CCSSI 2010). In order for students to be able to do this, students and teachers alike need to begin to think in terms of "yet." This means that students have to be prepared to engage in a fair amount of what Cathy Seeley calls "constructive struggling" (Seeley 2009) and teachers have to be prepared to allow them to do so. As Seeley writes, "we sometimes spoon-feed our students too much information and ask too little of them in return," (p. 89). In essence, we don't allow them to struggle or have the opportunity to push through something challenging and feel the satisfaction of accomplishing (or being on the way to accomplishing) something difficult.

What does this mean for American teachers and students? It means that we all need to shift our perspective of what it means to be a good math teacher from one who carefully provides students step-by-step procedures to one who provides students with opportunities to engage with rich mathematical tasks and a bit of "constructive struggling." It also means that we have to shift our perspective of what it means to be a good math learner from one who can memorize rules and apply algorithms without thinking to one who expects mathematics to make sense and is willing to stick with a task until it is understood. This may seem like a daunting endeavor…it is! As with many things that are worth doing, it's going to take time, effort, trial and error, a lot of help, and maybe even a few tears. But please don’t despair if you feel like you can't do it. Just remember, all that means is you can't do it—yet.

7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning

Originally posted:
February 1, 2013
10:55 AM
By Katrina Schwartz

Every educator wants to create an environment that will foster students’ love of learning. Because the criteria are intangible, it’s difficult to define or pinpoint exactly what they are. But one group is giving it a try.

Researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched the Innovative Learning Environments project to turn an academic lens on the project of identifying concrete traits that mark innovative learning environments. They sifted through and categorized the research on learning science, documented case studies, and compiled policy recommendations they hope will transform the current system.

Their book, The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice and the accompanying practitioner’s guide, lay out the key principles for designing learning environments that will help students build skills useful in a world where jobs are increasingly information and knowledge-based. The principles are not job-specific – no one knows what the future economy will demand. Instead, the main goal is to develop self-directed learners, students with “adaptive expertise.”

“Adaptive expertise tries to push beyond the idea of mastery,” said Jennifer Groff, an educational engineer and co-founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign. “You may be proficient, but without adaptive expertise you can get stuck very quickly as the world shifts.”

Groff doesn’t dispute that mastery is important and that students need to learn age-appropriate content, but she also argues it’s equally important to develop students’ ability to go beyond that, to question and apply learning in new situations.

To that end, these are their identified principles for innovative learning.

1.Learners have to be at the center of what happens in the classroom with activities focused on their cognition and growth. They have to actively engage in learning in order to become self-regulated learners who are able to control their emotions and motivations during the study process, set goals, and monitor their own learning process.

2. Learning is a social practice and can’t happen alone. “By our nature we are social beings and we learn by interacting,” Groff said. “We learn by pushing and pulling on concepts with one another.” Structured, collaborative group work can be good for all learners; it pushes people in different ways.

3. Emotions are an integral part of learning. Students understand ideas better when there’s interplay between emotions, motivation and cognition, so positive beliefs about oneself are a core part of reaching a more profound understanding. The power of emotions and motivation in the classroom are well documented, but often overlooked because they are “soft.” Still most teachers know that if a student is upset about something that happened at home or in school, he won’t learn well. Similarly, keeping students motivated should be the starting point of learning. If students understand why it matters, learning becomes more important to them.

4. Learners are different and innovative learning environments reflect the various experiences and prior knowledge that each student brings to class. “You really want practices and processes that help teachers engage each student where they are,” said Groff. This principle is understood by every frustrated educator teaching to a “middle” that doesn’t exist.

5. Students need to be stretched, but not too much. “It’s really critical to find that student’s sweet spot,” Groff Said. Educators should try to prevent both coasting and overloading. Students need to experience both academic success and the challenge of discovery. In a diverse classroom group work can help achieve this as students at different levels help one another.

6. Assessment should be for learning, not of learning. Assessments are important, but only to gauge how to structure the next lesson for maximum effectiveness. It should be meaningful, substantial, and shape the learning environment itself. “Good teachers do this informally most of the time,” Groff said. “But when it’s done well and more formally it’s a whole structure and methodology where you collect feedback on the learning pathway and it drives the next step that you take.”

7. Learning needs to be connected across disciplines and reach out into the real world. Learning can’t be meaningful if students don’t understand why the knowledge will be useful to them, how it can be applied in life. Understanding the connections between subjects and ideas is essential for the ability to transfer skills and adapt. “We can’t just have things remain in silos that never interact,” Groff said.

IMPLEMENTING THE PRINCIPLES

Many of the seven principles Groff outlines are second nature to good teachers, but they can feel hard to achieve within education systems that are slow-moving, bureaucratic and resistant to change. Still Groff says there are ways for teachers who want to create an innovative learning environment to begin down the path, even without the full support of their colleagues and administration. Groff also hopes shifting to the Common Core could offer openings for building in these practices. “It’s designed in a way that condones a lot of the principles that we’ve been talking about,” she said.

Everyone knows the common barriers educators face: the school culture, the students and themselves. Groff says with some reflection and problem solving, teachers can often begin to work around these barriers. An educator might think she’s open to innovation without realizing that there are preconceived notions about how one should teach that are deeply ingrained.

“You may be proficient, but without adaptive expertise you can get stuck very quickly as the world shifts.”What’s more, if the school culture does not encourage experimentation, educators can mitigate negative reaction by framing the ideas in a way that will be accepted, or by bringing in outside resources to try and convince naysayers. Even finding one colleague in or outside of the school to bounce ideas with can make the process much smoother.

Educators can also test ideas with students before implementing them. Students have been indoctrinated into the same educational mindset about what makes a “useful” education as everyone else, and some might be resistant to new teaching methodologies. Without their enthusiasm it can be hard to persevere through other obstacles.

CASE STUDY

The darling of the Innovative Learning Environment case studies is the Jenaplan School in Germany. It’s one of the few schools embodying all the principles fluidly. The school has about 450 students that range three to 20 years old. Students aren’t broken up into grade levels, instead they learn in mixed-age groups as well as in groups of roughly the same age. Learning is directed by students, often project-based, evaluated primarily through writing and projects, self-assessments and peer-assessment. The schedule is periodic, focusing on a topic like geography or history for three to four weeks and crossing into multiple disciplines. The teacher is seen as an active mentor and coordinator and the school has active parental involvement.

The Jenaplan School has won awards for its model and in the eyes of the Innovative Learning Environment researchers is doing an excellent job at preparing students to be adaptive and nimble thinkers in a knowledge-based world.

Mathalicious

How can you not be curious about a website called Mathalicious?  Here's a video to give you a taste.  I've added the website to the sidebar for your reading pleasure.  Another suggestion from Rob Robson.

About Mathalicious from mathalicious on Vimeo.

TVO Kids Teacher Zone

Check out the TVO Kids Teacher Zone website for SMART Notebook lessons.  There are four math lessons, as well as some Language Arts, Social Studies and Science templates.

Watch a demonstration video and download the Notebook files by clicking here.

Manifesto of an Anarchist Educator

In 1850 Anselme Bellegarrigue tacked the original Anarchist Manifesto to the walls of Paris and in like fashion I attach this “Manifesto of an Anarchist Educator” to this digital wall. It’s a pastiche of the work of many others (some credited, some not) and is intended as a discussion starter, not a definitive work.

Manifesto of an Anarchist Educator

1.Students Are Free- Freedom is not bestowed externally; it is intrinsic to each student. It is not meted out as educators see fit, but always present unless repressed. Education is the process of helping students express their freedom.

2.Students Should Not Be Coerced- The use of social pressure or power relationships to influence students is not acceptable. Students should be free to reject a point of view, an opinion, or an action if they so choose. They must be free to make choices without fear.

3.Students Are Equal- There are many sources of inequality in society (e.g. age, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.). These should not diminish the quality of education for any student. Educators must minimize inequality in education and ensure all students have equal opportunity to educate themselves.

4.Equality of Resources- Resources must be shared equitably. Students come to education with differing needs and differing access to resources. Education must redress this inequality. Providing the same resources to all students perpetuates existing inequality.

5.Students Are Decisions Makers- Students are equal, free and entitled to be partners in their education. Students must be free to make decisions and choices about what, where, when and with whom they learn. Some argue that students are unable to make appropriate choices, that they cannot properly understand the consequences of their decisions. The use of Intelligent Choice at The Summerhill School with students as young as 5 years old show this isn’t true.

6.Students Need to Collaborate and Cooperate- Students must learn to collaborate and work cooperatively with others to fully express their freedom. Only by developing these skills can students access the resources they need.

7.Education Structures Must Be “Flat”: The existence of hierarchies in education facilitates the use of power to coerce and require students and educators to do things not freely chosen. When hierarchies are eliminated students see individuals collaborating of their own free will. They can then apply this model in their own learning.

8.Education Fosters a Respect for the Planet- The core belief that we must minimize our impact on our natural environment must be woven throughout education. This ensures resources are availability for others now and in the future.

9.Education Explodes Walls- The expression of freedom occurs in both a real and digital context and cannot be fully expressed behind literal or figurative walls. Educators must explode the walls enclosing students and their learning and walk them out past the rubble so they can engage themselves in solving important and real problems. (Colin Ward)

10.Education is Relevant- Education cannot be confined to the physical or temporal boundaries of schools. Learning occurs whenever and wherever it happens and our education system must facilitate the sharing of all learning, the inter-connection of learning and the extension of learning to provoke new learning (Ivan Illich).

This blog post originated here.

Free Classroom Lessons from Math Solutions

Check out the Math Solutions free classroom lessons page, organized by grade, with downloadable lesson plans for every math strand and topic you'd want.  Most of Marilyn Burns math resources are gold, so I've added a permanent link to the site on the sidebar "Links for Teachers".  The site is constantly added to and certain lessons are highlighted each month in the Math Solutions newsletter.

Project Based Learning

Here's a website (PBLU.org) that offers ideas for project based learning.  Below is a short video that explains how one may use the website.  Thank you to Rob Robson (@robrobson) for the suggestion.

5 Technology Skills Every Student Needs Before They Leave High School, er, Make That Middle School

Check out the interesting blog post on what our students need as far as technology skills go in the 21st Century.

World Education Games: Registration Now Open!

What it is: Holy cow, I am SO excited! Today registration is open for World Education Games!! If your students have never participated with World Education Games (like World Math Day), this is the year. They will thank you for including them in this fun world wide contest. February 1st, that’s today, registration is open and the official warm-up training period for students begins. On March 5h students can participate in World Literacy Day, March 6 is World Math Day, and March 7 is World Science Day. March 22nd Global award presentations begin with the Official World Education Games Awards. The World Education Games is an annual global online olympics to get students from age 4 to 18 excited about learning. The fun comes in the friendly competition between countries as students compete to represent their country in the games. There are 3 days of games focused on literacy, math and science. The games are a great way to help students in speed, accuracy and general fluency in core computation, number and spelling skills. World Science Day has been designed to encourage curiosity and excitement in science while helping them answer knowledge, application and reasoning questions. Each game (a competition against other students from around the world) lasts just 1 minute. Students can go head to head as often as they would like, but only the first 50 games are counted toward the competition point tally. World Math Day was launched in 2007 and my students have taken part in this fun competition each year. Since then, Literacy and Science day has been added to the games. SO much fun!

How to integrate World Education Games into the classroom: World Education Games are such a fantastic way to encourage students to practice foundational skills. In the past, I have hosted an “opening ceremonies” at my school and done it up like the Olympics with flags, songs, etc. We go over what the World Education Games are and then make a big deal about the handing out of usernames/passwords (like lighting the torch) and then we kick off our training portion. Students get excited about participating in this fun day and we get lots of “training” in before the big day. On the actual day, we wear red, white and blue and play against kids from around the world. This is great fun in a one-to-one setting or a computer lab where all students can participate simultaneously. Don’t have that option? Because the games are 1 minute long, students can play 5 games each on classroom computers in a rotation.

Since your students are competing against students from around the world, why not use the competition to practice using a map and identifying countries? Since we have a one to one iPad program, we do this digitally with a Google Map. Each time a student competed against a country, they would come up to the board and put a “pin” in the map. Don’t have devices for each student? Use an interactive whiteboard or the paper map and actual pins on a class bulletin board, these options are just as fun!

Don’t forget closing ceremonies at the end of World Education Games. Make up fun medals and give them out to top performers, hardest trainers, etc. Think outside the box on these. Not all kids are speedy in their fact recall…find a way to honor their participation and hard work…did they see huge improvement or growth? Honor those achievements!

The World Education Games are available for free on any internet-connected computer and as a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10 app.

Check out the Resource page for teacher and student guide, a world map, a poster, and for School-in-a-box information.

Tips: Schools participating in the World Education Games can also work toward giving other children the opportunity to start school. World Education Games has partnered with UNICEF to make this happen. During the games, host a fundraiser to purchase “School-in-a-Box” Each $236 donation is enough to send 80 kids to school! What a great way to help kids understand what a privilege education is and model compassion and empathy for others.

Want to be a better teacher? Blog.

for the love of learning: Want to be a better teacher? Blog.: Click the link to view the article from its original source or continue reading the article in its entirety below...

This was written by Dean Shareski who is a Digital Learning Consultant for Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan, Canada. He also teaches pre-service teachers at the University of Regina. Dean works with teachers and students in understanding the power of the Read/Write Web. Dean tweets here and blogs here. This post first appeared here.

by Dean Shareski

Want to create better teachers? I know how. One word. Blogging.

Now before you roll your eyes or accuse me of oversimplifying the very complex issue of teacher evaluation and monitoring, hear me out.

I began teaching in 1988. It was a tough job and thinking about getting better was superseded by survival instincts. Early on in my career, there were several documents that the province produced in support of improved professional development. I didn't pay much attention to these but one phrase I saw in those documents some 20 years ago stuck with me. Reflective Practitioner. I sort of understood the concept but other than simply thinking about what you did in the classroom, I wasn't at all sure what to do with this term.

When I discovered blogs almost five years ago, I soon figured out what that term meant. Since that occasion I have sat down to write close to 1,000 pieces of reflection. While not all would be considered deep, most take me anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours to craft. It may not always look like it, these are generally borne out of the times I spent observing, thinking and working in classrooms. The reflective writing has been valuable but definitely the nearly 4,000 comments have been even more of a learning experience. This is the single best professional development experience I've had.

Dan Meyer, a Mathematics teacher in California writes:

... blogging was the cheapest, most risk-free investment I could have made of my personal time into my job. You start by writing down things that are interesting to you, practices you don't want to forget. And then you start trying new things just so you can blog about them later, picking them apart, and dialoging over them with strangers. Periods of stagnancy in your blogging start to correspond to periods of stagnancy in your teaching. You start to muse on your job when you're stuck in traffic, in line for groceries, that sort of thing. That transformation has been nothing but good for me and it all began on a free Blogspot blog.

Thousands of other blogging educators could echo similar words. In fact, I've yet to hear anyone who has stuck with blogging suggest it's been anything less than essential to their growth and improvement. I've no "data" to prove this but I'm willing to bet my golf clubs that teachers who blog are our best teachers. If you look at the promise of Professional Learning Communities that our schools have invested thousands, more likely millions to achieve, blogs accomplish much of the same things. The basic idea of the PLC is to have teachers share practice/data and work in teams to make improvements. A good blog does this and more. While the data may not be school specific, great bloggers know how to share data and experience that is both relevant and universal so any reader can contribute and create discussion.

There's a natural transparency that emerges. The teachers who blog as professionals in this reflective manner in my district invite anyone to look into their classrooms and you can get a picture of what happens on a daily basis. This goes a long way in addressing accountability concerns.

Teachers have for years had to fill in a plethora of reports and forms which in essence are accountability papers. For the most part they are of no use to teachers and in most cases aren't very valuable for administration either. Busy work.

So here's my plan. Hire a teacher, give them a blog. Get them to subscribe to at least five other teachers in the district as well as five other great teachers from around the globe. Have their principal and a few central office people to subscribe to the blog and five other teachers as well. Require them to write at least once a week on their practice. Get conversations going right from the get go. Watch teachers get better.

Try that. If it doesn't work after a year, you get my golf clubs.

PS. The only people allowed to criticize or challenge this idea are people who have blogged for at least one year and written at least 50 posts. The rest of you can ask questions but you can't dismiss it.

Grade One Student Creates Mobile Game App

What have your students done since first grade?