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"Of Particular Interest" Archives!

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS WEIGH IN ON ACHIEVEMENT GAP
Principal Keven MacDonald started the Achievement Gap Club at Smedberg Middle School two years ago. "I came in with six binders of research and threw them on the floor," he says. "I said to the students, 'These experts don't have the answers. The gap has existed for 50 years. Why don't you tell me what we need to do?'" Thirty 7th and 8th graders continue to meet twice a month to discuss gaps in test scores among various student subgroups, why the gaps might exist, and how they might be addressed. Last year, says this story in the Sacramento Bee, "the students also made a video in which they and their teachers talked frankly about expectations, stereotypes, cultural differences and the achievement gap." Over time, MacDonald says, the club has become a "trust zone" where students are comfortable talking openly about their experiences with race and school.

REWIND: 25 IDEAS FOR BETTER BOOK REPORTS
This feature at the Education World website was originally inspired by some discussion in the MiddleWeb chat group (now NMSA's MiddleTalk), way back in 2001. So it has a nice middle school spin and plenty of teacher-tested ideas. Best of all, the EW editors have continued to freshen the material and update the links (most recently in March 2008). Ready to energize your book report assignments? This page has plenty of juice!

RESEARCH: WHEN IS MULTI-MODAL MOST EFFECTIVE?
According to a new research review commissioned by Cisco Systems, interactive learning doesn't ALWAYS trump the more passive "sit and get" approach to absorbing content. The Metri Group found that: "When learning basic skills, the average student's scores increase with multimodal learning. But the increase is greater — 21 percentile points — when the lesson isn't interactive. (Scores increase 9 percentile points when it is interactive.) When it comes to acquiring more ADVANCED skills, however, the situation is reversed: The average student's scores increase 32 percentile points with multimodal interactive lessons, compared with 20 points with noninteractive lessons."

CROSS-CURRICULAR RESOURCE: TURNING THE PAGES
With the widespread digitization of nearly everything, "many iconic treasures in the (world's) print collections...are now available online in high-quality reproductions that anyone can closely examine and virtually handle," says Douglas Cruickshank. A prime example is the British Museum's "Turning the Pages" website, where visitors can peruse (and read essays about) documents ranging from the Magna Carta to Lewis Carroll's original hand-illustrated Alice's Adventures Under Ground (audio included). Or how about Mozart's Musical Diary with audio clips of the composer's handwritten notations? These 3-D books have pages that really turn, and the variety is astounding. Teachers of science, art, mathematics (da Vinci's notebook!), as well as history and literature, will find items that can entice and engage students. Teachers can visit the Library's learning homepage for ideas about curriculum application. (Requires free Adobe Shockwave) Here's another DeVinci geometry item.

THE FACTS ABOUT FACS TEACHERS
Teacher Magazine blogger Susan Graham teaches Family and Consumer Science at a Virginia middle school, where her students discover a lot about the world as well as the home. In this recent entry, "Don't Be Too Quick to Label Me," the National Board certified teacher gives us a glimpse of accomplished teaching in a setting that invites a rich blend of hands-on learning and higher order thinking.

COLLABORATIVE TEACHING BRINGS CREATIVITY BACK
"Like many of our education colleagues around the country, we have struggled with the constraints brought on by the federal No Child Left Behind Act," write the teacher co-authors of TeamWork: Setting the Standard for Collaborative Teaching Grades 5-9 in this recent Education Week essay. "Like several of our fellow teachers, we viewed the law's directives as threats likely to suck every shred of imagination out of our instruction. But as we persisted in our work, we discovered that we could meet the challenges posed by the law with a powerful tool...collaborative teaching. In fact, we now believe that working together creatively is the only way to meet the ambitious goals of NCLB and state and district standards." (Requires free registration)

MATH AND TECHNOLOGY -- A STRONG MARRIAGE?
The National Mathematics Advisory Panel thinks so. The panel's recent recommendations include more use of digital tools in math instruction. This article at Edutopia summarizes the panel's advice and describes how some math teachers are already putting technology to work in their classrooms.

ARE THEY READY FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL?
Teachers are "expected to ease the transition of students from elementary to middle school," says this recent article in Scholastic Instructor. "But if you're an elementary teacher, you may not know what kids will be facing in middle school, and if you're a middle school teacher, you aren't always aware of what skills incoming students have already mastered (or not, as the case may be)." The article should promote useful discussion among middle grades teachers or (dare we suggest?) between a middle school and its elementary feeders. Our favorite section: What middle schoolers wished teachers had known when they arrived at your door. Our favorite tip (for elementary teachers): Never say, "Just wait until you get to middle school."

MICROSCOPE IMAGING AT THE EXPLORATORIUM
The Internet Scout Report loves San Francisco's Exploratorium— and so do we. One of the hands-on museum's most popular features is the Microscope Imaging Station. If you're not likely to make a field trip to the City by the Bay in the near future, the next best thing is this website where students and teachers can examine high-resolution images captured by research-grade microscopes. The Scout Report recommends starting in the Features or Gallery section to view images of animal cells and cellular activities. Then visit the Activities area for classroom ideas, printable flipbooks, and very cool desktop wallpaper (that's the background, not the screen saver). A zebrafish eyeball, anyone? Human red blood cells?

WHAT URBAN PARENTS THINK
A new report from the National School Boards Association, What We Think, examines the results of a recent large-scale survey of parents whose children attend urban schools. More than 10,000 parents (30% were males) from 17 states answered the survey, which gauged their perceptions about bullying; expectations of student success; influence of race; parental involvement; safety; and trust, respect, and the ethos of caring. Major findings are crisply presented in a five-page executive summary, followed by three pages of recommendations for schools. The report begins with a truism sometimes overlooked: "As previous participants in the system, (parents') views seem to transcend what may be current practice. Nonetheless, perception is reality. If they perceive the schools as open, respectful environments, they will interact with them accordingly. Conversely, if they perceive schools to be closed, disrespectful environments, they will respond as befitting this view." This observation is reinforced in a pair of "mentor" columns at Teacher Magazine, written by Anne Henderson and Karen Mapp, co-authors of "Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships." Quick reads, great advice. Here's PartI and Part II.

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS HAVE A SAY
Like farming, videography is persistent, slow, and steady work. A group of students at Vermont's Cabot Middle School have learned a lot about both farming and fliming as part of a statewide curriculum-based project called Lights, Camera...Leadership!. When their film "Farmers Have a Say" premiered at a packed public meeting, one student told the audience, "I learned that farmers do the work they do because they like to, not to make money." Students and teachers in eight Vermont towns are making documentary films that capture important stories about their rural communities. They use primary sources to study an issue from past, present and future perspectives, then synthesize their findings through the video development process. Most important, perhaps, they then organize and host a community premiere followed by student-led discussion groups. This story at the What Kids Can Do website describes how both students and teachers learn through this project-based approach to education.

SCIENCE FOR REAL LIFE
"Middle level science curricula should integrate science with students' lives and communities," reads the teaser on this article from the May 2008 edition of Principal Leadership magazine. The article would work well as an stimulator for team, department or schoolwide discussions about the quality of your science program. The focus, as you might guess, has as much to do with "content-specific pedagogy" as it does with curriculum content. There's a self-assessment tool that encourages schools and individual teachers to examine their beliefs and practices about science instruction. Another template offers a "Five E's Lesson Plan Format," based on stages of inquiry (two levels of engagement, exploration, and two levels of explanation). The author, Elizabeth Hammerman, is also co-author of Differentiated Instructional Strategies for Science K-8 (Corwin, 2008).

BACK TO THE CLASSROOM -- AND LOVIN' IT
Need a little booster here at the end of the traditional school year? We were inspired by the reflections of middle school literacy coach Kathie Marshall who, after six years of coaching, aged 61, is returning to full-time classroom teaching. As a "mature" teacher with limited energy reserves, she knows there's plenty of hard work ahead. "The saving grace for me, though, is the fact that I actually find middle school students energizing. Crazy, hormonal, silly, vexing, incessant, yes, but energizing nonetheless."

A POETRY FLIPCHART
Our friends at Stenhouse are inviting teachers to take a free flip through their new poetry flipchart, The Poetry Experience, which they believe will help students and teachers collaborate "to create a fun, word-rich, poem-filled environment." The 32-page flipbook includes an overview of genres and techniques, top 10 lists of favorite poems by grade range and genre, and strategies for writing, reading, and responding to all forms of poetry. It's all there for the viewing (but not printing - you'll need to take notes). Folks who decide to buy the book ($10) will like the reproducible masters, including a poetry timetable, 10 questions to ask about any poem, an observation checklist for teachers, and a personal poetry inventory for students.

THE CHALK TALK STRATEGY
Some of you may be familiar with the "Chalk Talk" technique. If not, it's a silent way to generate ideas, develop projects, check on learning, solve problems, or reflect. It's done completely in silence and allows students to interact visibly and directly with ideas and silently with each other. This detailed description from the League of Professional Schools (MS Word file) says it encourages thoughtful contemplation, generates questions and ideas, and gives students a change of pace. It can also be used with adults and "has been known to solve vexing problems, surprise everyone with how much is collectively known about something, get an entire project planned, or give a committee everything it needs to know with no verbal sparring." It comes highly recommended to us by a top-notch teacher.

THE TEACHING PENALTY
Lots of teachers (and principals) are talking about this new report from the Economic Policy Institute. In an environment where the recruitment and retention of highly skilled teachers is becoming a "high stakes" issue, are teacher salaries sufficient to attract and hold the best graduates into teaching careers? EPI says no. The Institute's researchers conclude that public school teachers "earn considerably less than comparably educated and experienced people, and less than people in occupations with similar educational and skill requirements." Specifically, teachers earn an average of 14 percent less (about $150 a week) than such professionals as accountants, reporters, registered nurses, computer programmers, members of the clergy, and personnel officers. This "teacher pay penalty" is found in all 50 states, and some states have a gap as high as 25 percent. You can download the entire text, which include policy implications, in PDF format at the link above. Be sure to check out the press kit, which serves as a good overview, and the charts displaying the "teaching penalty" state-by-state, the pay gap for both male and female teachers, and a graph showing that annual wages for woman teachers went from a nearly 15% advantage over other female college graduates in 1960 to a more than 13% deficit in 2000.

HELPING STUDENTS REMEMBER
Marilee Sprenger, the author of "How to Teach So Students Remember," works with schools on using brain-based teaching strategies and memory research in the classroom. In this interview with ASCD's Education Update, Sprenger advocates making the seven steps in the memory/learning cycle explicit to students. "I believe that the more a student knows about how she learns, the better learner she may be. I always teach my students about how their brains work, how memory works, and how to get information into long-term memory in a retrievable fashion." For more discussion of recent research on memory and the recall of information, see this Wired magazine article, SuperMemo.

K12 ONLINE 2008 - TIME TO WRITE YOUR PROPOSAL!
Our favorite virtual conference about 21st Century teaching and learning is K12 ONLINE. It's a no-cost web-based gathering begun by teachers several years ago. Last year, the cyber-confab drew 83,000 participants who participated in both live and anytime-you-like events. Numbered among the presenters are the famous (David Warlick, Vicki Davis, Mark Wagner) and the just plain smart (maybe you?!). All the presentations are archived and available for viewing as the months and years go by. The 2008 conference with have the theme "Amplifying Possibilies," and the organizers are now calling for proposals (deadline June 23). The event itself will take place during a two-week window in late October. So you'll have all summer to polish your video or audio presentation. Details at the link above.

REFRAMING BULLYING IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS
Do we expect bullying from adolescents? Are they brutish, evil, aggressive, and immoral, as some media stories and anti-bullying programs might lead us to believe? Middle school principal Sarah Shulkind thinks it's time "we stopped pointing fingers at adolescents and look instead at the culture that has produced rampant cruelty in many public middle and high school." Shulkind points to overcrowded, poorly maintained schools and zero-tolerance policies that can leave students feeling anonymous and imprisoned. She shares the story of Dillon, the coolest boy in the 8th grade, to press her pragmatic point that "brutish or tender -- we get the behavior we expect. It's all in the messages we send, the attitudes we display, and the expectations we communicate." (Education Week - free registration)

MATH FOCAL POINTS
There's a new series of Explore in Depth mathematics resources at the NSDL Middle School Portal. Grades 5, 6 and 7 are already available and grade 8 should appear soon. Terry Herrera, who taught math in both middle and high school, writes these publications, which tie NCTM's new curriculum focal points to supportive resources on the Web. In Grade 7, for example, we find the focal point: "Developing an understanding of and applying proportionality, including similarity," followed by annotated links to engaging problems that deal with ratio, in the concrete as well as the abstract. One activity has students working hands-on with online images that make visual the abstractions of ratio and percentage. A high-quality resource developed by math educators at Ohio State University.

GRADING: SHOULD IT BE DIFFERENTIATED?
Middle grades teacher Deidre Grode is ASCD'S Outstanding Young Educator for 2008 — recognized for her focus on student community service and global citizenship. In a recent entry at the ASCD Community Blog, Grode (who teaches social studies and language arts in New Jersey) reflects on two workshops she attended at the recent ASCD national conference. Both pushed her thinking about formative assessment and led her to pose this question: "How much can we differentiate student to student...when it comes to something as objective as grading?" She'd like to have your input, so leave a comment. It's simple to do!

GRADING: DO RECIPES REALLY WORK?
Speaking of talented young teachers who are puzzling through the mysteries of grading, let me introduce you to Ariel Sacks, a new blogger for the Teacher Leaders Network. She poses some challenging questions for herself and others when she writes: "Today, testing has been thrust into the position of Single Most Important Measure of Student Learning in the life of a school, and I'm wondering, what kind of assessment would I put in its place? Would I prefer to rely instead on my own classroom grading system? If not, what is its purpose? And what am I really grading?" Ariel has the creeping notion that "grading recipes," which she and many other teachers use, are "a totally inadequate measure of student learning." Her thoughtful reflections have already produced a slew of comments. Add some more!

COPYRIGHTS AND WRONGS
"I don't think most teachers willingly ignore copyright issues," says David Ensign, a professor of law at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky. "But I do think many have the impression that any use of material in education is fair use." Not so, says Ensign. This short article from Edutopia magazine highlights the legal nuances of fair use of Web materials. Suffice it to say: Downloader, beware. But not to leave YOU with a downer — here's one terrific source of photography (over 40 million images) that can be used without acquiring specific permission, thanks to Creative Commons agreements.

FRESH IDEAS ABOUT TEACHING STUDENTS TO EDIT
Teacher-author Jeff Anderson says he's been in quite a few classrooms where teachers who do great stuff with writer's workshop and craft lessons get out the spoon and the bottle of castor oil when it's time to work on editing and grammar. "In the classic daily oral language drill, a teacher puts up a sentence filled with errors and students shout out all the things that are wrong with it." What messages are student's taking away from all this examination of bad patterns, he wonders? In this 45-minute webcast at the Stenhouse Publishers website, Anderson talks with a teacher audience about a different strategy involving the use of "wonderful mentor sentences" that students are invited to analyze and imitate. It's easy to watch the webcast, all at once or in segments, and you don't need special software—just your browser.

THE BIOLOGY CORNER
This teacher-built site comes recommended by The Scout Report for its wealth of lesson plans, useful handouts, lab ideas, and other classroom activities. Science educator Shannan Muskopf also has a master's in technology ed and has included webquest ideas and other digital enhancements she's adapted from the Web (see, for example, the guppy simulation). Another site worth visiting, which includes complimentary references to Muskopf, is MY SCIENCE BOX, subtitled "hands-on science curriculum for the adventurous teacher." The boxes contain kid-tested 4-6 week middle school science units built around activities, projects, and field trips.

SUCCESSFUL CLASSROOM BLOGGING
This week we point you to two resources that can help teachers and students turn classroom blogging into meaningful learning. The first (link above) comes from OPI regular Bill Ferriter, who answers the question: "How much emphasis should be put on maintaining a higher level of spelling and grammar while still encouraging students to be active users of the blog?" Bill, who teaches sixth grade, begins by cautioning teachers not to blog for blogging's sake. Instead, "decide what exactly it is that you want students to accomplish with a blogging project before you even begin." Bill includes a link to his wiki about teaching with web tools, which he's compiling for a book project. We're also pointing you toward a new article from Educators eZine titled "Student and Teacher Blogs that Succeed." Canadian educator Dean Shareski begins with the intriguing observation that "blogging is way more about reading than it is writing."

ENERGIZE YOUR TEACHING CAREER
As teachers advance in their careers and increase their effectiveness, how do they continue to grow professionally and find personal satisfaction? You'll find fuel for thought about 'Energizing Your Career' in Teacher Magazine's new print periodical, the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook. Among the offerings are articles about school-based coaching roles, new-teacher support, online professional development, and revitalizing your classroom practice. There's a good interview with teacher-author Coleen Armstrong who offers practical ideas for teachers suffering from mid-career doldrums. We also spotted some excellent tips aimed at helping teachers and school teams avoid Professional Learning Community burnout, written by Friend of MiddleWeb Anne Jolly, a middle school science teacher turned PLC coach.

LIFE IN THE ROMAN REPUBLIC
You'll find several excellent articles about life in the Roman Empire at this website developed by author Judith Geary, in connection with her YA historical novel Getorix: The Eagle and The Bull."The free articles include topics like "Republican Roman Names" and "Big Changes in Ancient Rome." Geary teachers at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Here's a detailed review of the novel.

AWARD-WINNING MIDDLE SCHOOL TEAMWORK
A couple of years ago we spotlighted a team of teachers from Dutchtown Middle School in Geismar LA who won a Disney Teaching Award for their exceptional teamwork. Now Monique Wild, Amanda Mayeaux, and Kathryn Edmonds have co-authored TeamWork: Setting the Standard for Collaborative Teaching, Grades 5-9, describing their evolution into a high-functioning interdisciplinary team built around a literacy core. "We offer a view of teaming that is grounded in the everyday experiences of working teachers who know what it means to cope with state and federal mandates, at-risk learners, and constant scheduling changes due to a rapidly growing school." You can download and read (but not print) any or all of TeamWork at no cost, by following the link above.

NEW TEACHER HELPLINE
Let's say you're a newbie who's nearing the end of your first year, and you still have questions -- maybe even some doubts about your future in the classroom. You might want to grab a few minutes (hard as that can be) and check out Scholastic's "New Teacher Helpline." We see a lot of teacher discussion boards around the Web and find that most are unfocused or undependable (you ask a question and then keep checking back in vain for an answer). The Scholastic board seems to be well populated, with responses coming both from other visitors and from a savvy moderator who is also a full-time teacher. The range of participants is K-12, but heavier on the K-8 end. For a sample, take a look at this recent post by "Bad Teacher" and the replies.

BULLYING: STORIES OF US
Here's a university-supported anti-bullying initiative known (in shorthand) as Stories of Us. The video series and supporting materials have been developed in partnership with middle grades students -- an unusual and effective idea. NASSP's Patti Kinney offers this catchy testimonial: "The storylines and dialogue are that of the students and it is so realistic that I felt at times I was reviewing a surveillance tape instead of watching a scripted drama unfold in front of me." This site worth a visit, whether or not you're in the market for a structured program to address bullying and promote positive peer relationships. You can read synopses of the videos, watch several sizeable excerpts, and peruse commentaries by two dozen students involved in the project.