Mentor texts in our classrooms could open up students' possibilities to these decisions-the options they have as writers. They can see that they are the decision makers and that multi-media requires creators of digital text to make many decisions so that their messages are clear and powerful. Rather than be formulaic, I want my students' Mentors to be pieces that open up what is possible in their own work.
"Increasing the gender diversity of the computer science faculty should be a priority for all schools as it would provide female students--as well as students of color--with role-models and mentors. In a study conducted in a suburban area near Oklahoma University, researchers examined the correlation between an after-school engineering mentoring program led by female college students and the perceptions of sixth and seventh grade girls (Holmes, Redmond, Thomas, & High, 2012). The researchers found that high quality mentoring relationships with a female role model led to an increase in the girls' confidence in their mathematics ability (Holmes et al., 2012). Similarly, seeing a confident and successful female computer science teacher could have a positive impact on girls and boys in computer science classes."
"Educators and parents hoping to inspire boys to excel at school now have a new tool at their disposal; Boy Smarts - Mentoring Boys for Success at School. In this book, you will find 100 imaginative and practical guidelines for authentic engagement in meeting boys' varied learning needs. The guidance offered here can help parents and teachers in the challenging task of understanding each boy as an individual while also working toward a community plan to raise boys' school achievement. The common sense approach offers to lay the groundwork for an action plan to Mentor boys for school success - a manual for kick-starting boys integrity."
There’s a tendency to portray time spent away from screens as idyllic, and time spent in front of them as something to panic about.
the most successful strategy, far from exiling technology, actually embraces it.
if the “off” switch is the only tool parents use to shape their kids’ experience of the Internet, they won’t do a very good job of preparing them for a world in which more and more technologies are switched on every year.
mentors are more likely than limiters to talk with their kids about how to use technology or the Internet responsibly—something that half of mentors do at least once a week, compared to just 20 percent of limiters.
They’re also the most likely to connect with their kids through technology, rather than in spite of it
children of limiters who are most likely to engage in problematic behavior: They’re twice as likely as the children of mentors to access porn, or to post rude or hostile comments online; they’re also three times as likely to go online and impersonate a classmate, peer, or adult.
once they do get online, limiters’ kids often lack the skills and habits that make for consistent, safe, and successful online interactions. Just as abstinence-only sex education doesn’t prevent teen pregnancy, it seems that keeping kids away from the digital world just makes them more likely to make bad choices once they do get online.
While limiters may succeed in fostering their kids’ capacity for face-to-face connection, they neglect the fact that a huge chunk of modern life is not actually lived face-to-face. They also miss an opportunity to teach their children the specific skills they need in order to live meaningful lives online as well as off—skills like compensating for the absence of visual cues in online communications; recognizing and adapting to the specific norms of different social platforms and sub-communities; adopting hashtags, emojis, and other cues to supplement text-based communications; and learning to balance accountability with security in constructing an online identity.
We can’t prepare our kids for the world they will inhabit as adults by dragging them back to the world we lived in as kids. It’s not our job as parents to put away the phones. It’s our job to take out the phones, and teach our kids how to use them.
A fascinating approach to the role of the parent in raising good digital citizens.
"..children of limiters who are most likely to engage in problematic behavior: They're twice as likely as the children of mentors to access porn, or to post rude or hostile comments online; they're also three times as likely to go online and impersonate a classmate, peer, or adult."
"You've probably heard of the student-led "Genius Bar", which is generally a team of student leaders that provide technical support for the technology devices and programs in their schools. What a great way to utilize and develop student knowledge and skills, right? I couldn't agree more.
Busch's student tech teams have four sub-committees: the "Newcast Directors," the "iPad Consultants," the "Makerspace Mentors," and the "Cyber Squad."
But what if we took the opportunity to develop young, skilled learners a step further, and asked those student leaders to support, collaborate with, and Mentor teachers and their peers with in-class technology projects? What if we asked those student learners to create informative, instructional digital content that is accessible to all? After all, many of us would agree that the students are the ones who are usually the most knowledgeable, up-to-date resources for what is the latest and greatest with technology, so why not tap into their large knowledge base and cultivate their leadership potential?
Our school here in Wisconsin did just that, and the results have been astounding. Here's how it happened."
"According to Google Trends (see photo), a new term came into existence and quickly became synonymous with progressive education and a resurgence of STEAM education in America. That term is maker education, or makered for short, and can be seen in the graph as "born" according to google searches, around September of 2004. Although the exact number of makered programs is not currently known, schools that employ a progressive pedagogy (insert the word innovative for those working in the 21st century) or schools that make claims regarding the importance of differentiation, constructivism or experiential learning have built or are building makered programs. At first these programs seemed to be dependent on having state of the art Maker Spaces or FabLabs and high-tech tools, as most were found in well-funded private schools. That picture has changed rapidly in the past ten years since the makered movement has gained popularity, however. More and more public/charter schools and nonprofit programs are building programs for the average American child, that rival many private school programs. In fact, programs with limited budgets and space have reminded us that scarcity or "disability," are invaluable teachers in any good maker culture, as they breed creativity and self-reliance. Many of the makered programs serving lower income communities have access to mentors who never stopped working with their hands, even when it fell out of status in a consumer driven America in the 1980's (Curtis 2002). While lower income mentors may not know Python or what an Arduino is, they are skilled carpenters, mechanics, seamstresses, cooks and know what it means to be resourceful. "
For the next 4 days, we will explore ways to become mentors for our colleagues. As coaches/mentors, you will assist your peers in identifying ways that technology can strengthen classroom curriculum and enhance students' academic achievement. You will also help your colleagues to develop the necessary technology skills and instructional strategies needed to integrate technology into teaching and learning.
"Please, No More Professional Development!
By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM
Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential.
Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day."
When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends).
According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth.
What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need?
As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development.
5 Point Plan
Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter
We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not
"For some women, enrolling in an engineering course is like running a psychological gauntlet. If they dodge overt problems like sexual harassment, sexist jokes, or poor treatment from professors, they often still have to evade subtler obstacles like the implicit tendency to see engineering as a male discipline. It's no wonder women in the U.S. hold just 13 to 22 percent of the doctorates in engineering, compared to an already-low 33 percent in the sciences as a whole.
Nilanjana Dasgupta, from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, thinks that mentors-people who can give advice, share experiences, or make social connections-can dismantle the gauntlet, and help young women to find their place in an often hostile field."
"On the second floor of Morgan State University's engineering building, Jacob Walker, 12, is putting the finishing touches on a ruler he's just created.
Not yet an actual ruler. One he's designing on the computer. He just needs to add his initials - then it's time to produce it on a 3-D printer.
Jacob starts seventh grade in the fall and has big dreams. Building this ruler is all part of the plan.
"When I was a child," he says, "I loved to play with Legos, and it inspired me to be an engineer when I get older."
Jacob is one of some 50 boys in this free, four-week camp at Morgan State. It's called the Minority Male Makers Program - paid for by Verizon."
"Building robots inspires such passion in high school seniors Violet and Kjersti that they've begun mentoring younger robotics teams to teach STEM skills -- and save their school's robotics program."
Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.
Studies of state-run virtual schools show, for instance, that the courses tend to draw students at the extremes of the academic spectrum—advanced, highly motivated students looking for academic acceleration, and students who are struggling in regular classrooms
Not surprisingly, the students with the best academic records in online classes tend to be in that high-ability group, according to experts in the field. But some new research also finds that online courses are beginning to score more successes with the lowest achievers—possibly because many are high school students who see the online courses as a last chance to earn enough credits to graduate.
Ferdig says the large numbers of academic go-getters taking online classes could account for some of the rosy findings in the first wave of studies of online coursetaking, since highly motivated students are likely to fare well in any academic environment. But later studies controlled more carefully for students’ academic differences at the starting gate and continued to find learning gains.
“It isn’t something that’s only for bright kids or only for kids who are well below grade level, because it may not work for many of them, either,” says Saul Rockman, the president and chief executive officer of Rockman et al., a San Francisco research group.
Rockman says his research suggests that succeeding in an online course is “more a matter of learning style.” Is the student an independent learner, for instance? Does he or she struggle with reading and writing?
Building in student-support mechanisms helps keep less academically motivated students from failing or dropping out of online classes, according to researchers.
This sounds like the key aspect for success. Teachers who are already building this into their classes either by responding to emails, online chats or setting up an atmosphere that encourages chatting within the context of their course, often late at night amongst students only, are seeing this success. Ex. Darren Kuropatwa's SH Math class blogs
“Whether that’s 24-hour technical support, tutorial support, parental vigilance, or face-to-face site coordinators or mentors,” Cavanaugh says. mentors and site coordinators seem to be especially linked to marked improvements in student results in large high schools, she adds.
“The mentor plays an important role in making sure Johnny or Susie logs in to the course on a regular basis and provides a point of contact for the instructor,” says Jamey Fitzpatrick, the president and chief executive officer of Michigan Virtual University, which currently enrolls 15,000 students, mostly in middle and high school
Some of the early studies emerging from the database helped dispel some concerns about potential detrimental effects of online coursetaking on students’ social development, according to Ferdig. Very few online students, those studies showed, took electronic classes full time. Rather, they combined virtual schooling with traditional courses. The studies also showed that students communicated regularly online with teachers and classmates.
Cavanaugh, of the University of Florida, says there is also a “general consensus”—if not air-tight research findings—that the more interactive the courses can be, the higher their success rates.
Ongoing studies are also beginning to look at whether so-called “hybrid” or “blended” courses—classes in which only 30 to 70 percent of the instruction takes place online and the rest is in person—are any more successful than all-electronic versions
Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.