Group items tagged

Each month, these seven teachers get together and watch video clips from their classrooms on computer monitors or television screens….A video club is a group of teachers who meet on a regular basis to view and discuss video segments from their classrooms. In a video club, the group establishes the goals, then tapes and selects the video segments for viewing. Ensuring productive learning experiences for teachers requires careful design and facilitation.

For the next 55 minutes, students work independently at their computers, learning core subjects or electives through online curricula aligned to Arizona’s state standards. They put on headphones or twist iPod ear buds into their ears, because the online programs are interactive and multimodal—comprised of audio, video vignettes, Flash animation, quizzes, and games. Paraprofessionals called “assistant coaches” walk through the center to make sure kids are doing their work, fix computer glitches, help with academic questions, and—most important, administrators say—check in emotionally with the students, talking with them about anything at home or at school that might be affecting their learning.

Above all, they say, partners must come together and agree not just on common goals, but shared ways to measure success towards those goals. They must communicate on a regular basis. And there must be a “backbone” organization that is focused full-time on managing the partnership.

war rooms” in each school. Teachers have meetings every two weeks, where they closely monitor students’ progress

the network can engage in continuous learning based on evidence.

All too often, the truly troubled kids that I meet have no adults that they can turn to for support.

As a society, we desperately need non-custodial adults who teens can turn to for advice. Adults who can help guide youth without playing their parents

teachers should NEVER ask a student to be their Friend on Facebook/MySpace but should accept Friend requests and proceed to interact in the same way as would be appropriate if the student approached the teacher after school.