Innovations in Education

A number of years ago I was teaching a gifted and talented pull out program in an elementary school in southern New Jersey. One of the gifts to the program was our first computer, an Apple IIE. The students were mesmerized by the computer and could not keep their hands off of it. They begged me to find software and activities so they could use this new devise.  During parents’ open house that year, the parents of the children in the program told me that their children could not stop raving about the computer and they wanted to buy one for Christmas. This was my first experience with technological innovations in the classroom.

Fast forward to 2013, over 30 years since my experience and we are now reading about schools doing away with books and paper, making them obsolete altogether. Students come to class with iPads and can almost instantaneously locate information that would have taken much longer to find by looking topics up in books or trekking to the library. Teachers too are issued iPads already loaded with applications that are suited for classroom use.

Now this particular school I had read about was a private parochial school in Florida but the implications for education are dramatic.  One obvious critical issue facing any effort to do this in the public school venue will be, of course, the cost. The school in Florida overhauled it entire wireless network and increased bandwidth with new fiber optic cable. This is an expensive proposition.  Committees were formed to determine the most suitable device for student use, examining Kindles, Nooks, Android tablets and even laptops.

Electronic education is coming to a school near you (if it hasn’t come already) and it is crucial that teachers stay on top of current technology so that they can be   there for students. Is this the end of textbooks as we know them? Who knows?  But what we are seeing and will continue to see is a major paradigm shift in what was once traditional education.

C.2013 J. Margolis

Free Technology for Teachers

I recently came across that wonderful and most helpful web site for teachers. Freetech4tachers(www.freetech4teachers.com) is written by Richard Byrne and has number of links for free downloads, discussions of tech tools that can be useful in the classroom and Byrne’s candid evaluations of new sites and technology. On a recent occasion Byrne reviews Schmoop, a web site for teachers and students with curriculum ideas and videos in a wide variety of education topics. Some of the material is free but there are fees for the site’s premium services.

Byrne also offers free downloads from his blog. They include “The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators,” “Ho to do 11 techy Things in the New School Year,” and Google for Teachers. There are even instructions on how to make videos on the web. Freetech4 teachers has won numerous awards including Best ed tech blog for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012. For the Luddites among us, this site is a treasure trove and a life saver.

There are also links to free eBooks for teachers including Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and Edutopia Home and School Connections Guide. I encourage you to peruse this site and investigate all of the options that are open to you. Technology will be an integral part of the new federal guidelines for Core Standards.

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EVENT ALERT

I would like to take the opportunity   to remind you know that next week is Read Across America Week. Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on or near March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss. Take the time to dust of your old copy of “The Cat in The Hat” and read to your students.  Great opportunities abound for activities and projects. Check out the  web site of the National Education Association ( www.nea.org)  Don’t miss this teachable moment!

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How to Chase the Midwinter Classroom Doldrums.

The first day of spring is about one month away. Spring break for most public schools is about six weeks away. Much of the nation has been hit by snowstorms and frigid weather. Things may be getting dull in the classroom as students and their teachers may be suffering from cabin fever. Creative teachers need to look into their bag of tricks and devise some creative ideas to keep the educational process going and maintain a high level of student enthusiasm until reinforcements arise. Also looming in the future are the state testing programs on which so much depends.  Below are a few suggestions foractivities and programs to help you get through this difficult period.

1)      Take a virtual field trip. If your school is short of funds or if the weather is too treacherous to take students on a bus trip across town, why not try a virtual field trip? Many museums and historic sites offer virtual tours via the internet. Are you teaching about the American Melting Pot or immigration then why not try a virtual field trip to Ellis Island? (http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/webcast.htm) Sponsored by the Scholastic Book Company, this program allows students to tour the buildings narrated by ranger from the US Park Service. The program lasts about 30 minutes. Also available is a tour of the US Museum of Natural History and The National Gallery of Art. See this web site for a whole host of virtual trips for elementary school students (http://www.techtrekers.com/virtualft.htm).

2)      Schedule an educational game day or week. Engage the students in a geography bee, a spelling bee or your own customized version of “Jeopardy.”

3)       Establish a Book a-thon. See how many books your students can read in a month. Award prizes to whose students who read the most books.

4)      You and your class write a class play. Have the students select a topic and spend some of your language arts periods writing the script. Assign parts to all of the students.

5)      Plan a trip around the world. Have each student select a country and devise an itinerary of places to visit on the trip. Have students research what typical meals would be like. Show pictures of a country’s stamps and money- all readily available on the internet. Have a travel fair in your classroom where each student can present his plans for travel abroad.

The options are limitless. Keep at it. I understand that the groundhog in Pennsylvania did not see his shadow this year. Maybe spring will come soon. Keep warm.

c. 2013 J. Margolis

National Signing Day

 Just in case you are among the uninformed, last week was National Signing Day. This is the day that high school athletes notify the college of their choice that they are planning to attend in the fall. AT 7AM students are allowed to fax the signed letters of intent to the college. At the other end of the fax machines are coaches and athletic directors eager with anticipation to see how their recruiting programs worked out. Along with many of these offers come athletic scholarships for the chosen few. This event was on the front page of USA Today was well as many other newspapers across the country.

After reading about all of the hoopla surrounding this event, I began to wonder- Do they ever have a National Signing Day for valedictorians? What about salutatorians? Do those students who received a score of “5” on their AP tests ever make the front page of national newspapers? Do those students who achieved a perfect score on their SATs or ACTs ever get the same accolades as their athletic classmates? Searching for the answer to these questions may lead us to uncover one of the reasons why American students are falling behinds their peers in other countries. Our society in the United States values athletic prowess more than it does academic excellence. The whole notion of an athletic scholarship is a bit of a joke. The first part of the word is SCHOLAR and many athletes are anything but scholars. They use up their four years of NCAA eligibility and head for the pros, often without a degree.

Since 1952 there has been an Academic All American list which is comprised of college student athletes and that meet requirements for academic achievement as well as athletic success but they often take a back seat to their peers. Maybe some time in the future the American public will realize that an educated society is the key to our success as a nation.

c. 2013 J. Margolis

National Nutrition Month

March is National Nutrition month. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics sponsors this event each year. The theme for 2013 is “Eat Right, Your way, Everyday.” As the obesity epidemic in the United States continued to worsen, it is appropriate for school to encourage children to eat right and to provide school lunches that are nutritious as well as appealing .According to the organization’s web site (http://www.eatright.org/nnm/.   “The campaign is designed to focus attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. NNM also promotes the Academy and its members to the public and the media as the most valuable and credible source of timely, scientifically based food and nutrition information.”

The United States Department of Agriculture has a wonderful web site ( choosemyplate.gov) At this site viewers can view links to such topics as eating healthy on a  budget, sample recipes, and nutrition tips. Check out the link for educators and teachers. You will find coloring pages for children ages 6-11 as well as suggestions for kid friendly fruits and vegetables.

An additional web site that classroom teachers will find useful is from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. (http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/housing/mfh/nnw/Nutrition

Nutrition is not the only issue that needs to be addressed in an effort to reduce childhood obesity in this country. Physical fitness and exercise go along with proper diet to help create a healthier America. There are several fitness programs that classroom teachers may want to take a look at to encourage their students to be physically fit as well as to eat right.

The “Let’s Move” program was initiated by First Lady Michelle Obama. http://www.letsmove.gov/. This colorful website offers activities for eating healthy as well as physical activity.

The National Football League is sponsoring a program called Play 60. (http://www.nflrush.com/play60/) The program encourages children to participate in at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day.

Finally take a look at the web site of Nourish Interactive. http://www.nourishinteractive.com/nutrition-games/learning-healthy-eating-fitness-childhood-habits. Here teachers will find quite a bit of useful information that can be used in the classroom.

Check out he charts from the Center for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov). Their web site too has statistical information regarding the issue of childhood obesity.

c. 2013 j. margolis

Teacher Performance vs. Student Achievement

 A recent report out of the state of Florida indicated that there is great disconnect between teacher performance and student achievement. Florida had recently implemented a new formula for evaluation its teachers. Florida State Senate President Don Gaetz questioned “How can you have a C- or D- ranked school in which 85 percent or 90 percent of the teachers are classified as effective or highly effective?”

Changes in Florida law in 2011 changed the way teachers were evaluated and the way they could earn raises. The law also eliminated teacher tenure for newly hired teachers, an issue which is being challenged in court by the Florida teachers union.

Several questions persist. One central issue is whose teaching are you evaluating? If you are testing a student’s cumulative knowledge, then the current classroom teacher is not entirely responsible. What about those transient students who come and go from other districts or even from other states? How do you effectively evaluate the performance of teachers in that situation?  Yet another issue is students who have learning disabilities. If they have not been properly diagnosed and evaluated and their test performance is not disaggregated, they could be credited to a teacher’s performance.

We need to look at several issues and the solutions are complicated.

1.       We need to review and revise how teachers are trained.  There needs to be sufficient contact time in the classroom as well as an understanding of the content areas to be taught. How much theoretical knowledge of learning theory is necessary? I recently attended several lectures about the education system in Israel and learned quite a bit about their workings. The government encourages education and innovation. It provided funding for research and education. The teacher training program at the Technion, one of Israel’s premier universities, is quite rigorous, where candidates must get their degree in the content field first and then assist in the classroom befor getting a teaching assignment of their own. Teachers are not committed to a 35 year career in the classroom. Most Israeli teachers enter the classroom more mature than their American peers since they all have a military obligation that must be met before starting college.

2.       We need to decide what all America school children should know. Programs like the Core Knowledge Curriculum and the Great Books program are good, but they assume that students have a basic general fund of knowledge and many students do not. Unfortunately a great deal of this can be attributed to socio-economic differences. Additionally most American students are not proficient in a second language. These deficiencies keep American school children behind their European peers.

There are no easy answers but the hour is late and we cannot afford to have our children fall further behind. Nor can we afford to rubber stamp past pedagogical practices.

c. 2013 J.Margolis

Teaching About Climate Change and the Weather

Most of the continental US is in the grips of a frigid cold wave this week. Yet the news from last week indicates that 2012 was one of the warmest years on record. The year past also included its share of atmospheric tragedies, floods, raging fires, and of course Superstorm Sandy. Many of your students (and teachers as well) may be conflicted about climate change and global warming. There are many opportunities to present material to launch a lively discussion about just what is happening to our weather. There are several web sites that provide a good background for discussion.

The National Weather Service (http://www.weather.gov/) part of NOAA has up to date information about the current Arctic like weather with maps and statistics suitable for classroom use.

The web site “The Teachers Guide (http://www.theteachersguide.com/Weather.html) has free lesson plans and worksheets, etc. to print and use in your classroom. Students can even get instructions to build their own weather station. There are PowerPoint presentations already prepared for use in the classroom.

Student at the high school and college level may want to view former Vice President’s Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” which takes critical look at global warming and its effects on our weather and the environment. Try viewing this web site -(http://www.takepart.com/an-inconvenient-truth).

The Weather Channel’s web page has a number of games and activities for children.  You will surely find something you can use in the classroom.  View http://theweatherchannelkids.com/weather-games/. Here you will also find film clips of weather events.

Additionally you may also want to view the web site of the National Geographic Society and its link for students about weather around the world.(http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/games/interactiveadventures/wildest-weather/

http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/site.html is the site for the University Corporation for Atmospheric Education. Here too teachers will find useful classroom tools.

I hope that you will find these suggestions useful in your classroom. Stay warm!

c. 2013 J. Margolis