Group items tagged

This is a great article about brain health and how diets that include large quantities of gluten have been linked to maladies such as Alzheimer's, anxiety, depression, chronic headaches, ADHD and others. The book, Grain Brain: The surprising truth about wheat, carbs, and sugar; your brain's silent killers has been on the best seller list since September. It's being published in 15 countries. The New England Journal of Medicine has also conducted numerous studies and supports some of the claims of the book, though there are differing opinions in the medical field and at the end of the article, the author is not convinced that gluten is dangerous to most people. We see a tremendous numbers of students in our schools that suffer from some of these ailments. The article is suggesting that nutrition is absolutely linked to our neurological health. A few years ago our food services changed the menus in our schools. Children in middle school can no longer eat 6 cookies and 2 ice creams for lunch. Though lunch duty isn't my favorite responsibility, it gives me the opportunity to see the changes happening in our cafeteria. In my observation, kids are actually ordering and eating the healthier options that they are offered. I recently experimented with changing my diet to be gluten free and I've never felt better. I didn't lose weight, but I lost my craving for carbohydrates after a few days and my focus on everything else seemed to be a little keener. It lasted about 6 weeks and I only fell off the wagon with my mother's bread stuffing at Thanksgiving. I instantly felt cravings for all things with flour. If I try it again I will pay more attention to see if I can tell if my diet really does effect my brain.

This is very interesting. I saw Dr. Perlmutter on the Dr. Oz show last week. Dr. Perlmutter suggests that we need to stay away from most carbs including many fruits, grains, rice and root vegetables. He talks about how our low fat, high carb diets are actually shrinking our brains causing more instances of alzeheimer, dementia and ADHD. Simple life style changes of going to a higher fat, low carb diet will reverse this trend. We have to be careful that people don't translate this recommendation of adding fat to our diets into raiding the cookie aisle and super sizing at MacDonald's!!

Wow! Thanks for the helpful info. on gluten and other foods that can impact our brain health.

I'll be presenting at the Blue Ribbon Confernece next week (along with several other people in our cohort). For part of our presentation, I asked my sixth graders questions about their thoughts on our classroom iPads and other technology we use in the classroom. I was happy to see that all of my students seemed to be enthusiastic about and enjoying some of the changes I've made this year! Some of the topics included are apps students find helpful, how we've been using Google Drive, and now having a set of iPads on our team has enhanced learning in all their classes - not just ELA.

Is the PC dead? If so, what is the life span of our smart phone, iPad, and Chrome book? Technology is changing so fast, so how can we possibly keep up? What is the best product for my needs? There are a lot of questions, but also many amazing product ideas. How about "turning our tables, floors and windows into touchscreen displays" or using your "touchscreen wrapped around a coffee cup"?

Is the PC dead? If so, what is the life span of our smart phone, iPad, and Chrome book? Technology is changing so fast, so how can we possibly keep up? What is the best product for my needs? There are a lot of questions, but also many amazing product ideas. How about "turning our tables, floors and windows into touchscreen displays" or using your "touchscreen wrapped around a coffee cup"?

We've all experienced difficult student behaviors in our classrooms; at least some of it seems to go with the territory. But it's important for us to try to understand why our students may be acting the way they are and try to meet them where they are. I used some of these approaches in my classroom, and what I discovered led me to use 1:1 iPad technology to help differentiate for my students and meet them where they are educationally. This article has some very helpful, practical approaches to functional behavioral assessment.

Thanks for sharing this. I like language, checklists, forms, etc that can change our team meetings in middle school from endlessly perseverating on one child to no avail to actually creating an action plan.

Hi Annemarie. This is very helpful for me, as "special education" strategies are a big gap in my learning, although these seem like the mainstream would also benefit. I find this really good for classroom management and for setting a welcoming vibe. As a specialist, I'm often having to create buy-in with near strangers because I'm assisting a class. While I'm positive and empathetic by nature, here are some concrete things that I can do to make sure I don't lose students along the way.

I agree with most of what this mother has to say. I like to think that I will feel the same way when I have kids. I'm curious what other parents think...

I definitely agree with the core of what this mother says. I feel that the time that our kids are with us, now, is their training ground for when I'm not there, and it's not fair for me to protect them from taking any "lumps". Sometimes that can mean leaving my 12 year old to manage a situation with her teacher on her own, or resisting making a call or email to the teacher to ask about an assignment that seems too difficult or confusing - this is not anyone in 7th grade! ;) It takes discipline on my part not to jump in to help her, and to let her feel the discomfort of doing something the wrong way or messing up a test because she was so sure that she had studied enough even though I was pretty sure she hadn't. My kids are the center of my world in that I am constantly aware of what's going on for them and constantly monitoring them to make sure all is well; the difference is that most of the time they don't know that I'm paying that kind of attention, because my husband and I work really hard to choose good situations for them where we feel confident to let our kids loose to sort it out (in school, activities, etc.) without jumping in to "save" them all the time.

Wow this was an interesting article. I totally want to share it out on facebook but I try not to be too controversial out there. I had a friend one time that talked about the feminization (if that's a word) of today's male. I guess I'm wondering if kids are not allowed to play rough how will that impact our society later. Will it impact our military.

George Couros is a MUST follow on Twitter. I really like this post he wrote. It covers new v. experiences teachers, tech integration, parents, and "listening to the nay-sayer". It's a good (and quick) read.

Loved #3, the demographics of our cohort is proof of the debunking of that assumption. My colleague PB and I are two of the oldest teachers at our school and we, along with our team members, are considered leaders in tech integration. I agree it is all about mindset, not age.

I agree with you, John. I went to MassCue on Thursday and noticed that the majority of the teachers there were veteran teachers. I think that years of experience give teachers the necessary understanding and confidence it takes to create change. Veteran teachers in our school also see and value the great ideas of newer teachers and work with them to make teaching better for all students.

A really interesting reflective post about parents' concerns about screen time and our increasing use of screens as a way to encourage learning. What should schools do when curriculum and instruction conflicts with parenting? No easy answer here. Just posing more questions.

Interesting post, Kerry. I don't have any answers, either. And since I'm not a parent, it's hard for me to imagine how I might feel on the parent side of the issue at this time. It's interesting because in our jigsaw group discussion on chapter 6, we talked about a similar issue. Wagner points out how parents of the innovators he showcased in his book limited screen time, but also set an important distinction between screen time where kids are watching TV and playing video games, often independently, and screen time in classrooms where kids are engaged in collaborative learning projects. I certainly agree that there is a difference, but it makes sense that there should be some balance, or some limit, somewhere. In education it always seems that the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other before settling somewhere in the middle. It will be interesting to see how this issue unfolds. I'd also be curious to hear from the perspectives of the parents in our EBTL2 class, since they are also educators involved in the BYOD initiative and growing world of technology.

So, I'm a parent of a 7th grader and a 3rd grader, and obviously I'm also involved as a teacher at RMHS. We have 1:1 iPads in my LLD English classes but they stay at school. I haven't had any push-back from parents so far about assignments or screen time. I did look at this link, and I looked at the forum as well, and I think as a parent, what was a little concerning about the forum comments, was the lack of empathy and understanding from teachers towards parents. As a parent, I also have concerns about screen time, and I see that there are certainly ways that we can limit recreational screen time. We do as much as we can. But, sometimes if my 7th grader has a project, I might not know much more about it than she is able to communicate to me (sometimes this is a lot, and sometimes it is not much). There have only been a few times when this has happened, but I have tried to set some limit about how much time to spend on the project, my daughter has really fought it, because she's been concerned about not doing a good job, etc. Occasionally new technology or apps take longer for her to master than the intended time for the project or assignment, and so something simple or seemingly quick takes much longer than it should. Situations like this can turn parents off to technology if they don't understand the big picture, or if they don't have any confidence that the teacher understands the big picture. Sometimes we don't give kids enough time in class to "play around" with apps or new approaches before turning them loose to do an assignment independently, and that too, can lead to stressful situations at home where both parent and child don't know how to do the assignment. I think the point is that any change is going to make people uncomfortable, and some folks are going to react more strongly than others. The more we can communicate and explain what's happening, and let parents know that the technology and experimentation is a vital part of the learning proce

I think Twitter has its benefits, but the "Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings" is a little much. Can't we even sit down and enjoy a little TV time anymore without sharing our thoughts and opinions with the world?

I think Twitter has its benefits, but the "Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings" is a little much. Can't we even sit down and enjoy a little TV time anymore without sharing our thoughts and opinions with the world?

Andrea Elliot - journalist for the New York Times - followed the life of an 11 year old homeless child, Dasani, for a year. According to the article there are a staggering amount of homeless children in New York City - 22,091 this month. To put that in perspective, if all of the city's homeless children were to file into Madison Square Garden for a hockey game, more than 4,800 would not have a seat. The article chronichles both Dasani's home and academic life. It is discouraging to think that even though this child has so much potential, the obstacles she will face in life make success extremely difficult (even with all the support she recieves at school). I know we have at least one homeless child on our team this year, and this article really helped put what her life might be lke into perspective for me. Eventhough the article is legnthy, I would encourage everyone to spend some time reading it. It was well worth the read.

This article really puts things into perspective. I also was glad that with all the chaos, the school seems to be a place of comfort and routine. With that said, it is deplorable that children are living in these types of conditions. As Annemarie said, it puts things into perspective,

Thanks for sharing Taylor. I have read most of the article and will definitely be finishing it. It's almost inconceivable that families, and especially children, are living in these conditions mainly because people are aware of it, it is documented, and yet nothing is done to fix it. I'm glad that school can be a place that provides comfort and safety for Dasani. I think that is the case for a lot of students, no matter how tough their home life may or may not be. It's hard to think about that while we enjoy our vacation and most likely don't want it to end. There are probably many children out there waiting desperately for schools to reopen. This article really makes you stop and think.

Real life skills that I certainly did not learn from school. I think my parents taught me most of them. Others I had to self-teach. The rest I still don't know how to do! Should schools teach these skills? Or should they be parents' responsibility?

The coding caught my eye as we have had a push in the last month or so to expose students to more computer science opportunities. That's a good example of something we should be teaching in school. Teaching any of these concepts in school isn't a bad idea, but what would it replace? Kids could easily practice some of these basic, practical skills within their own families.

Good to know that our business and technology curriculum is relevant. We teach taxes, budgeting, finance, coding, resume building to those who take our electives. I actually had RWPS students come to me this morning asking if it would be viable to teach a business elective on sutainability.

Interesting read on how Kindergarten is the new first grade. I know that in my 18 years teaching that I have seen this shift. Things that I used in my first grade classroom are now being used in Kindergarten.

Thanks for sharing Kerry! I was actually just having this conversation with a colleague at lunch today following our curriculum and instruction meeting. We were reviewing the DIBBLES scores and discussing the kids that were in the yellow and discussing how we can get these "struggling" students to green. The piece that was not noted or discussed was that most of these kids were in the red at the beginning of the year. Of course we need to talk about how to continue to support all students, but I feel like we are focusing only on getting them to the green and not taking the time to recognize how successful and how much progress they have made this far. Some of these kids knew 4 letters and no sounds at the beginning of the year and now can name all the letters and their sounds, but are having trouble with newly introduced skills like blending and segmenting words. That is a lot of progress in just one area, never mind their progress in other areas. I don't know that I have personally progressed that much in any are of my life in the last year, never mind the last five months. On the other hand there are definitely kids in my class that are ready to or are reading and need to be pushed and challenged. My concern isn't that the standards are unrealistic, it's that it is unrealistic of us to expect that all kids will meet them at the same time and if they don't meet them in our set time frame we consider them to be a struggling student. As a result we push them harder and make them do more work with a skill that they might just not be ready for.

This blog was written a couple of years ago, but it has great information on the Digital Learning Farm. There is a chart of iPad apps to be used for each of the jobs in the Farm model. I found the chart to be a valuable source of information for someone starting to implement this model.

This is a great article with some useful app information. Can't wait to begin our farm :)

I was happy to see that last year we did a decent job using the digital learning farm and can't wait to perfect it this year. This blog will be very useful in helping us do just that!

I've been a big fan of Diane Ravitch ever since reading her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. Here, she maintains that the recent NAEP reports on reading and math that indicate the success of "carrot and stick" reforms are just not accurate. I think she makes some good points that align well with our class readings and discussions. If this is a topic that interests you, you might also want to check on Diane Ravitch on Dan Pink's Office Hours where she discusses the detriments of merit pay http://bit.ly/1b8Spl7

This is a real and current issue. I assign homework. I believe it helps me assess that students have mentally digested what happened in class through their reflections, and helps my students prepare for class when we are operating in a flipped capacity. Tough issue with people who feel strongly on all sides. This is one teacher's perspective.

I was going to stay out of this because it is such a hot button issue, but in the end, I decided to comment. I think we all know there is no easy answer. I have a daughter in high school here in Reading who does 7-8 hours of homework per night and spends at least half her weekend, every weekend, studying and doing more homework. It has become a real issue for my daughter and my family. It is September, and to say she is burnt out is an understatement. More balance is needed. An hour and a half to two hours of homework in each class per night equals 7 or so hours minimum every night after attending school for 6 1/2 hours each day. This normally means getting to bed well after midnight each night, and up again by six the next morning to do it all again. She is exhausted. It's not mentally or physically healthy for anyone, let alone an adolescent. This is just my perspective as a teacher and the parent of a high schooler. I am not against homework, and have always instilled a strong work ethic in my kids, but the time and stamina needed to complete the pure volume of homework, study for tests, complete individual and group projects, day in and day out, is not sustainable.

Thanks for posting your perspective, Jan. Indeed, 7 hours of homework after a full day of school sounds staggering. There are other articles at the Atlantics website in which teachers argue against assigning any homework at all (see http://m.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/should-i-stop-assigning-homework/279803/). Both perspectives are interesting and both talk about what their research shows. I think 7 hours a night is too much. I think assigning mere "worksheets" is not helpful. I posted this because I have been considering my own practice. I don't think it has to be 2 hours a night or nothing, though. There is no easy answer.

I started using Vine late last year to post videos of our students doing great things. (Reading to first graders, working together at field day, encouraging one another during a Smart Board review game, etc.) This Edutopia blog post gives TONS of links to really great ideas for using Vine with kids as a way to assess their understanding. Some of them are really funny and insightful. I know there is some nasty stuff out there on Vine and Instagram, but if we teachers don't show kids how to use these social media outlets in a positive way, who will? Right? I think I might give some of these ideas a shot.

Thanks, Kerry. I haven't used Vine before, though I've seen it used. I'm definitely interested in trying it out this year. It's amazing how creative some people can be in six seconds! Taylor and I recently started using Instagram to post what's going on in our classrooms. We are loving it so far. It's something that the kids are on anyway, so the interest is there. They love going on to "like" pictures of themselves and their peers, and even "like" the picture Taylor posts of the homework board! It's also a fast and easy way to keep parents informed about what's going on in the classroom on a daily basis. I also love that even though we're only in October, it's a photo log of the many things that we've done already this year. I look forward to giving the video capabilities a try.

Useful information on measuring student growth. (Pre/Post, Repeated Measures, Holistic, Post Only)

Thank you for sharing this, Steve. I found it very useful and I'm going to pass it on to the other 6th grade ELA and special education teachers. This guide works well with our focus for the in-service day on Tuesday. We decided that our focus during the morning sessions was going to be on scoring samples of student work to make sure there is consistency among how we are scoring, and then use the second block to determine anchor papers that represent different levels of achievement. As a special education teacher, I was initially apprehensive about this process of DDMs. This was addressed in the guide, as many teachers who teach students with learning differences are concerned about being evaluated on student performance. However, if the DDMs truly look at student progress, based on where they started, and keep it focused on the individual's growth, then I do believe that it will be a more equitable measure for assessing teachers. One question that still remains is what accommodations are allowed when administering DDMs. In sixth grade there were questions about whether it was strictly MCAS accommodations, or whether we were allowed to read the articles to the students since we were measuring writing. It's something that still needs to be worked out in this pilot year. Thanks again for making this available for others to use.

Kathy Favazza sent this site out to our staff at Parker. This is the email message: At the PARCC and CCSS trainings that I attended in Chicago I learned of an amazing tool. It's called Newsela. It is a website that takes articles in various topics: War & Peace, Money, Kids, Science and Law and links them to the anchor literacy standards that we all need to address in our subjects. You can set up classes and assign articles for students to read. Some articles have text based follow up questions (those with a small anchor in the top right) that you can assign to students. The coolest feature however is that you can adjust the reading level of the articles!!!!

I've played with this site and it is awesome. You can adjust the reading level of the texts. It has built in assessments like main idea. I highly recommend this resource for grades 4 through middle school.

This is an interesting infographic. Perhaps this is why the flipped model has gotten some traction. The truth is that because of the internet and social media we get a lot of our information and communication done via video. Heck, my own kids haven't ever really talked on the phone. They only video chat with our relatives using FaceTime. Like all other teaching tools, though, video needs to be varied with other methods and it requires a great teacher for the information to have the right impact on the kids. Summary: When I was a student, 'using video in education' mostly meant showing a movie in class. Which to me, as a student, was clearly much better than the alternative of a lecture. With so much interactive multimedia technology available to today's students, 'video in education' means way more than it used to.