The power of a Schrutebuck...

I found this to be very insightful.

Merging Career Technical and College Prep

Merging Career Tech and College Prep

From the latest Edutopia Update, you can discover successful schools and strategies from across the country -- and use their best teaching practices, training materials, and rubrics with your students. Merging career and technical education with college prep curricula makes for exciting results. In some parts of the country, they're just finding this out. Check out this link for more.

Teach Tony Danza

For those that might be interested...

Edmodo and the Fairness Issue

I was going to introduce my freshmen students to Edmodo early in the year. Then I took a survey and found that about 25 percent of my students don't have Internet at home. I'm surprised, frankly.

Now I'm not so sure I want to use Edmodo. If I do, a minority of my students will have to go to the library on their lunch break. I would cry foul myself if someone required me to do that.

Anyone have any opinions on this? Is anyone using Edmodo with students yet?

Master The Web

Are you already on the Teacher List? Pete McKay has been sharing valuable websites for classroom use for 12 years. That makes for an extensive archive of valuable resources for all (SME's) subject matter experts. The Teacher List is a free subscription that you can have sent to your mailbox everyday. The site's motto is "Mastering The Web One Site At A Time."

Over 2,600 teachers, principals, professors, parents, and support staff from around the world receive one website recommendation for use in classrooms each day. It's a convenient, orderly, and sane way to build your bookmarks no matter where you store your favorites. Besides, if you can't use a particular day's recommendation, you probably know someone who can use that day's resource. So it's a great way to collaborate. Just enter your email address and click "submit."

You can also find The Teacher List on Twitter and Facebook and you can even go to the Teacher List store

Moving to Learn

There's some fascinating research that challenges what we thought we knew about studying and learning. Robert Bjork at UCLA is claiming that the "always study in the same place" rule doesn't work as well as studying in different locations. His findings are complex, but it appears the brain "tags" the learning with the sights, sounds, and stimuli of the location. More locations with different stimuli make it easier for the brain to tag and store new learning. Make sense?

Have you had the experience of solving a really challenging problem when you moved to a different location, thought about it, even subconsciously somewhere else, and then "Aha!" a solution came to mind. Maybe you were on the beach, wheeling a shopping cart, or even driving home...not places you normally associate with doing your best thinking.

Bjork's other finding is that it's better to vary the materials you're teaching with and the concepts or skills you want students to master. Supposedly, far more was learned by research participants when they didn't focus on one subject or subtopic or concept for too long, but instead moved between multiple concepts. This finding not only challenges the wisdom of "skill and drill instruction" but pushes us to vary the kinds of tasks with choice as a crucial part of the mix.

This is really daunting for young teachers early in the year to put management systems in place, to be consistent and clear, yet still allow for the movement and flexibility students need to maximize their learning? How do you provide for choice and flexibility throughout the day, yet still remain focused on specific goals?

Click on the link and read the two page NY Times article for yourself. What do you think?

This post is adapted from a coaching newsletter I subscribe to and authored by Brenda Power.

A video...

Another comic

I just have to post these...

Teacher Zone - Math Teachers

This post is really an advertisement for a learning resource called Teacher Zone. Do you already know about this site? I had been reading the "Latest Activity" on the Classroom 2.0 Blog, where one teacher posted a call for assistance. "Help, I need online math resources!" and another teacher responded with, "I would try Teacher Zone for math video lessons - free. They have loads of math video lessons - 3 to 5 minutes long for grades 3 to 10."

So I visited the site, became a member by giving them my name, school, and email address. They sent me a password so I could log in. While I waited for the password to arrive in my mailbox, I watched several preview videos they make available. I recall one was a video that modeled how to solve for Area and Perimeter of a composite figure. I didn't even know what a composite figure was.

I thought the narrator spoke pretty quickly (especially when carrying out basic operations) and assumed I already knew some terms. But to the narrator's credit, he did explain what's meant by a composite figure.

So how might I use a video like this in the classroom? I'm certainly open to your comments. You are the SME's (Subject Matter Experts) but I might select 3 or 4 students who will not think the narrator is going too fast. I would have them watch the video as they record the narrator's steps in bullet form (on a proof card). I'd have them check one another's cards to be sure they all got all the steps. I'd be checking here.

Then I would have them teach (create the same performance as the narrator) 1 to 3 other students. The new small learning group would try to capture the steps (on an index card). The new group would be able to ask questions, talk about the steps they heard, and check their cards with one another. The teacher here is moving from small group to small group, making sure the procedures for small group talk are occurring, making sure misconceptions are surfaced and clarified, deciding whether the whole class needs the clarification or just an individual or small group. The teacher is deciding how much power and authority to grant the student-teachers in the small groups.

Then, I would have them practice, practice, practice: give them all another identical problem with different units to work on together, talk out their steps. For closure I might ask them to think of a case where being able to figure out the "area and perimeter" of such a problem is necessary. I'd have them create that word problem perhaps with the help of their group.

No matter how you design the learning, the important fact is, showing a video, even a short clip, is NOT teaching and is not a substitute for teaching. Learning or evidence of learning must be your goal. I would tell them in advance what I expect to see and hear. So in the design summary I suggested, where might a teacher get to see evidence of learning? Would love to hear from you! I hope you'll add Teacher Zone to your Math Resources.