Author: sylviamartinez

Sylvia Libow Martinez is an education change agent, writer, speaker, consultant, engineer, maker, and mom.
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California educators: your help needed on digital textbooks

Just got this email:

California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) is conducting a survey of the Free Digital Textbook Initiative to discover awareness among educators, to find out whether educators plan to implement any of the books, and to inquire about the need for additional courses. We’d appreciate if you would participate and forward this message to educators in your area. As a reward, we’ll select two surveys at random for an iPod Nano.

Your assistance is needed:
On June 9, 2009, the Governor implemented the Free Digital Textbook Initiative (FDTI) making it possible for educators to access and download free high school math and science textbooks that align to the California Content Standards. The California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) reviews and determines the extent to which digital textbooks align to the Standards and then posts the information on the CLRN Website. Educators can go to CLRN to determine which standards-aligned digital textbooks are available. This survey is to determine familiarity and use of the digital textbook program by California schools. Your completion of this survey will help to determine the value and make improvements in the digital textbook initiative.

Go to the survey – California educators only!

Sylvia

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Deliberate Tinkering

Presentation Zen: 10 Tips on how to think like a designer.

Design in the real world is often a process of deliberate tinkering. Sometimes the goal may be clear, with timelines, budgets, and constraints. Or the goal may be less clear, as you struggle to come up with something “better” even though no one quite knows what that means. Sometimes you work for days or weeks, making small incremental steps, sometimes things come in a flash of brilliance.

Yet in school, there is often a rigid “design process” with stages that imply a linear progression from start to finish. Whether teaching writing, video production, the “scientific method”, or programming, it often seems most efficient to provide students with step-by-step assistance, tools, and tricks to organize their thoughts and get to a finished product.

However, this well-intentioned support may in fact have the effect of stifling creativity and forcing students into creating products that simply mirror the cookbook they have been given. In fact, some students, having been well-trained to follow directions, will simply march through the steps with little thought at all. On the other hand, students need some kind of support and structure, right?

So how do you combine the benefits of tinkering (creative chaos, brainstorming, time to reflect) with getting something done. I believe the answer lies in looking at the design process in the creative world – such as graphic artists and designers.

Presentation Zen is a website devoted to simplicity in design and a recent article provides some great direction for classroom projects: Presentation Zen: 10 Tips on how to think like a designer.

Here are the tips from the article:

(1) Embrace constraints. (2) Practice restraint. (3) Adopt the beginner’s mind. (4) Check your ego at the door. (5) Focus on the experience of the design. (6) Become a master storyteller. (7) Think communication not decoration. (8) Obsess about ideas not tools. (9) Clarify your intention. (10) Sharpen your vision & curiosity and learn from the lessons around you. (11) Learn all the “rules” and know when and why to break them.

I hope you read this article; it provides much food for thought.

Sylvia

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Start the year off with hands on

Teacher Magazine: Teaching Secrets: How to Maximize Hands-On Learning.

Good teachers know that students learn a lot more when they get their hands on real materials, and get to do their own projects and experiments. But sometimes we get frustrated thinking about the students who won’t cooperate, don’t clean up, waste materials, or misbehave during our hands-on learning time. In my work as a science teacher and coach, I’ve seen teachers who decide to delay lab activities until behavior is rock-solid. Instead of starting off with a bang, they tiptoe toward inquiry learning.

The author, Anthony Cody is an award-winning science teacher, and this article has some great ideas, tips and practical suggestions for all grades and subject areas.

Some people wonder if computers are “real” materials, thinking that what happens on the screen is virtual, not real. But if students are allowed to use computers as part of their toolkit – making things can include digital things. Making, doing, constructing are all possible on a computer, and part of many student’s everyday lives, outside of school, at least. Empowering students to believe in themselves as capable of making things that matter, both in the physical and digital world, is a crucial part of learning.

So whatever you call it, project-based learning, hands-on, or inquiry learning – the time to start is always NOW!

Sylvia

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President to speak to students

President to Address Students

From the Ed.gov website: President Obama will deliver a national address to students on Tuesday, September 8 at noon ET. He will challenge students to work hard, set education goals, and take responsibility for their learning.

The speech will be broadcast live on the White House Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/) and on C-SPAN at 12:00 p.m., ET. The Department of Education offers educators a menu of classroom activities—created by its teachers-in-residence, the Teaching Ambassador Fellows—to help engage students in the address and stimulate classroom discussions about the importance of education.

To learn more, please see the following:

To further encourage student engagement, the U.S. Department of Education is launching the “I Am What I Learn” video contest. On September 8, we will invite students to respond to the president’s challenge by creating videos, up to two minutes in length, describing the steps they will take to improve their education and the role education will play in fulfilling their dreams.

We invite all students age 13 and older to create and upload their videos to YouTube by October 8. Submissions can be in the form of video blogs, public service announcements (PSAs), music videos, or documentaries. Students are encouraged to have fun and be creative with this project! The general public will then vote on their favorites to determine the top 20 finalists. These 20 videos will be reviewed by a panel of judges including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The panel will choose three winners, each of whom will receive a $1,000 cash prize.

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My comment: While I hope that many students do have a chance to listen to the President, I also wonder about the mixed messages we send to children and teachers. “Take responsibility” …but all we care about are test scores. “Work hard” … but only on what we say is important.

Telling students to take responsibility without the opportunity and support to do so is worthless. It’s like putting a kid on a sailboat and telling him that if he blows hard enough, it will sail. Students must actually be able to take responsibility by being given important things to do, things they care about. They need to be able to contribute to society as individuals–supported by adults who care about them, not test scores.

I love the idea of the President speaking directly to students. But as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. I hope the Department of Education’s actions start matching the President’s words.

Sylvia

PS Isn’t it ironic that the video contest asks students to upload their videos to YouTube, which is blocked in most schools.

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Back to School – What do students want from teachers

Educational Leadership:Giving Students Ownership of Learning:What Students Want from Teachers

Back to school time is here – and I’m going through the files to find inspiring, practical ideas for nurturing student leadership, creativity, and lifelong learning.

This is a great article from Ed Leadership (ASCD) for back to school. What do students want from teachers? What makes them feel in charge of their learning? Students said:

  • Take me seriously
  • Challenge me to think
  • Nurture my self-respect
  • Show me I can make a difference
  • Let me do it my way
  • Point me toward my goals
  • Make me feel important
  • Build on my interests
  • Tap my creativity
  • Bring out my best self

There are more details in the article, but aren’t these some great reflection starters for the school year?

Sylvia

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Free Back to School Resource for Laptop Schools

It’s back to school time again in the US! Time for fresh new school supplies, backpacks, or maybe some new laptops?

studentsupportlaptopcover

Student Support of Laptop Programs – new laptops? old laptops? Are you getting the benefit of making students allies in your laptop initiative? Peer mentoring, student-led training on new hardware and software, student tech support and other ideas can be time saving, cost effective, and best of all, good for students and the whole learning community.

This whitepaper contains research, case studies, practical information that you can use right now, whether you have one cart or are a 1:1 laptop school.

Student Support of Laptop Programs (PDF)

Sylvia

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The New Teacher Project Analyzes Race to the Top

The New Teacher Project Analyzes Race to the Top. from Converge Magazine.

In case you don’t want to sift through all the Education Department guidelines for Race to the Top, you can check out an easy-to-read summary and analysis [PDF] that The New Teacher Project released this month.

The national nonprofit group spells out the race guidelines, gives states and districts checklists to see whether they’re meeting the criteria, and shows how competitive the states are when they’re matched up the standards.

As of this month, four states are not eligible to compete. California, New York and Wisconsin do not allow teachers to be evaluated by student performance data, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, though the states don’t agree with his assessment. Pennsylvania’s not eligible either, but for a different reason: It has not been approved for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act fiscal stabilization funds.

More from the Converge article here…

or download the full report in PDF format.

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Students Reap Academic Gains from Community Service

Rural Students Reap Academic Gains from Community Service | Edutopia.

Yes, I know the title of the Edutopia article says RURAL students reap academic gains from community service, but really, there’s nothing here in this article that wouldn’t apply to any student service, rural, urban, or suburban.

The service learning examples in this article are terrific, and there is a nice video accompanying it. In this district, academic scores are up, attendance up, and all kinds of other good schooly information is connected to the service learning.

But really, it all comes home for me when the students articulate what service and learning mean to them.

James (not his real name), a student who received many Fs his freshman year and who was a chronic truant until he moved to the Fowler district, surveys his shed with pride. “We accomplished something for the little kids,” he says. James, who is graduating from Casa Blanca, attributes much of his success to service learning. “Every day, this is what I love coming to school for — doing projects and building stuff for the community,” he explains.

James also points out that it’s more critical to do work right the first time on a construction project than on a math worksheet, where he can easily rework mistakes. “If you mess up on the real project, you can’t just erase it. You’ve got to buy more wood. It’s not cool.”

James is pointing out something that should be such a obvious principle of education, but often gets lost in the achievement/assessment/accountability shell game: Learning only matters if it matters to the learner. Achievement can be measured in pride, not wasting wood, and helping little kids–not filling out worksheets. The only reason anyone would be surprised that a “chronic truant” cares about his work or about little kids is that we rarely ask students to demonstrate their human capacity for caring for others while in school.

Hope everyone reads this terrific article and congratulations to the profiled school district in Fowler, California!

Sylvia

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Unpacking John Hughes – Lessons for Educators

Views: John Hughes’s Lessons – Inside Higher Ed.

This is a great little article by Maureen O’Connell in Inside Higher Ed magazine for educators to ponder. John Hughes left a legacy of films about adolescent relationships – with each other, with parents, but also with their own schools and teachers.

But for all of the examples of generational disconnect in the movies of the late director John Hughes (who died this month) also offers cues for avoiding the Bueller Triangle where meaningful interaction among adults and youth simply vanishes. In this light, Hughes’s films are revelatory for educators.

She goes on to plumb numerous John Hughes films for the key interactions between teachers, administrators, and students. You know, we’ve all seen them, identified with the kids, and perhaps squirmed uncomfortably as we recognize adults we know (or are.)

They don’t just want to study the historical, economic, political, psycho-sexual, and post-colonial contours of the red Ferrari. They want to drive it.

And adults like Andy Walsh’s broken-hearted father, Jack, or her eclectic boss, Iona, in “Pretty in Pink,” who teach young people by demonstrating what learning looks like — neither relating to them as peers nor hovering to try to protect them from life’s inevitable failures — provide the materials students need to make their own prom gowns, a now classic metaphor for navigating the drama of adolescence.

Sure, prom gowns and cars aren’t going to be on the test, but these kinds of connections to real life and the real motivations of kids are the priceless threads that connect, motivate, and teach.

John Hughes knew it. Some might think he was denigrating education because he often showed adults in an unflattering light. But he did also showed educators in moments of clarity when the walls came down and they saw students as real people on the ageless quest for identity, connection, and meaning in life.

RIP John Hughes, a great educator.

Sylvia