Over spring break I attended several theme parks. While there I started to take a look around and I began to notice a phenomenon that intrigued me, inspired me, and reminded me of what is important in our classrooms. All at once into my third park I realized that we, as educators, are missing the…
The study: Over the span of five summer weeks, 18 second-graders were divided into two groups; one group read aloud to another person for 30 minutes once a week, and the other group read aloud to a dog.
Guess which group saw a decrease in their words-per-minute reading rate…
I know this without looking. Reading to the dog is better because they feel less worried about mistakes.
If you believe in yourself, you will know how to ride a bike.
I’d like this kid to be a motivational speaker in my classroom this year.
I’m reading ahead the summer book club book (Teaching with Poverty in Mind), so I could have discussion questions prepared.
It obviously focuses on poverty, but the section on how stress can affect the brain is helping me to understand myself.
Also, having taught in a very low ses area with students of special needs — mostly attention, behavior, and neurological disorders, I am learning a lot of new things and understanding some of my experiences differently. What makes me happy though, is learning why all the things that I did that made my classroom so successful — are completely backed up by research. A lot of it came on instinct, bouncing ideas off of other teachers, and reading teacher blogs and books other teachers wrote about their classroom experiences. It is nice to know WHY it worked though, so hopefully I can recreate it in my classroom again this upcoming year.
The Seattle Times has announced that Washington State’s Senator Murray is attempting to include the LEARN Act in whatever new law Congress ultimately passes to replace No Child Left Behind. LEARN would cost nearly $12 billion over five years, and is designed “to help students from preschools to high schools to read better,” the newspaper said.
There is no evidence that the LEARN Act will work, plenty of evidence that it won’t, and plenty of evidence that the $12 billion budgeted for LEARN should be invested elsewhere.
The LEARN Act is a combination of three existing programs. None have been successful.
[…]
The LEARN Act assumes that direct instruction is the only way children become literate. It says, “The intellectual and linguistic skills necessary for writing and reading must be developed through explicit, intentional, and systematic language activities. …” And it assumes that there is no contrary view. This is not only the case for K-3, but is also true for the upper grades. For 4-12, LEARN requires: “ … direct and explicit instruction that builds academic vocabulary and strategies and knowledge of text structure for reading different kinds of texts within and across core academic subjects.”
There is not only a contrary view, but there is good evidence, published in scientific journals and books, supporting the contrary view: The direct teaching/skills approach is very limited. Most of our knowledge of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and text structure, as well as the ability to read fluently and with understanding, is the result of reading, not explicit instruction. Nevertheless, the direct teaching/skills approach will be the law of the land for language arts K-12 if LEARN is passed or included in the new education law.
LEARN nearly completely ignores the most important factor in developing literacy: Encouraging the development of an independent reading habit through literature study, reading time, and access to books. Consistent with the view that reading is the source of much of our competence in literacy, a number of studies have confirmed that better libraries and the presence of credentialed librarians are related to higher reading achievement.
Filed under: Things that concern me.
Where do these politicians get all their bad ideas?
"‘The proper stimulants to study,’ Haven added, ‘are not medals, or position in class, or prizes, but the gratification produced by an enlarged acquaintance with truth, and by the greater influence for good thereby produced.’"
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From “Before the G.P.A” by James Tobin in University of Michigan’s online magazine, Michigan Today. Before 1912, U-M did not give letter grades—it only passed students or failed them. The article examines the reasoning behind this philosophy and its ramifications.
(via tolivecontent)
Interesting. I’ve heard a lot of arguments for grade-less schools. Not sure how that would work and still monitor progress though. However, I do hope my students grow to love learning for the sake of learning and discovering things… and not just to get an A. I hope they are also proud of the process in going from the unknown to the known.
(via tolivecontent)
Gorillas and diet at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Both Gorillas have heart disease. I find it very interesting that as the sugar in their diet went down, behaviors not observed in the wild (but observed in captivity) went down. Let’s do a study on decreasing sugar in children’s diet, increasing vegetables, in a population of students that is high in behavior problems and observe the changes in behavior their. Oh wait, that’s been done a lot.
Scientists have long puzzled over the many hours we spend in light, dreamless slumber. But a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests we’re busy recharging our brain’s learning capacity during this traditionally undervalued phase of sleep, which can take up half the night.
UC Berkeley researchers have found compelling evidence that bursts of brain waves known as “sleep spindles” may be networking between key regions of the brain to clear a path to learning. These electrical impulses help to shift fact-based memories from the brain’s hippocampus — which has limited storage space — to the prefrontal cortex’s “hard drive,” thus freeing up the hippocampus to take in fresh data. Spindles are fast pulses of electricity generated during non-REM sleep, and they can occur up to 1,000 times a night.
I think this needs to be shared more widely, especially with some parents. My students that come in sleepy, no matter how excited I am about the topic — it is so hard to even get them to focus. They may eventually understand the lesson while in my classroom, but I don’t think they are always able to retain it once they leave.
File this under things I’ll be looking at just as soon as I get caught up on everything else.
In today’s Academic Minute, Landmark College’s Jim Baucom suggests specific study methods that are firmly based in research on cognitive improvement. Baucom is a professor of education and social sciences at Landmark. Learn more about him here.
(Source: world-shaker)
As my career as an educator continues, I find myself more and more frequently taking time to reflect on the ever-present “why do we need to know this” question with my students. And you know what? I NEVER tell them it’s because you’ll need to know this for a question on the April state tests. What do they care about state tests?
Why should we learn about the oceans? Because they feed about 600,000,000 people every day, regulate climate, cycle the nutrients you need to stay alive, and they provide a source of mineral wealth a vital shipping link. On top of that, the ocean provides water to sail, on, makes waves to surf, and are endlessly beautiful and inspiring!
We are required by law to teach the standards; but let’s not lose sight of our real task, to inspire, encourage, support, care for, and help mold a citizenry of thoughtful, compassionate, hopeful, caring people.
(Click to read the entire article).
The Super Hero Squad comic maker could be used for creative writing assignments. Students can work on developing stories and dialogue in a fun and familiar context. Even students who don’t consider themselves “artistic” can develop good-looking comic stories.
