Group items tagged

" The YASLA STEM page. Sponsored by YALSA's STEM Task Force. It is a wiki page useful for educators to get ideas on how to effectively integrate STEM into your library programs and services. And what is STEM you ask? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math and is one of the hottest topics in education and library circles. STEM programming is one way to engage teens in your library and encourage learning and exploration in new ways. "

"The best way to activate your classroom is for your students to make something. This might an amazing high-tech invention or it might take the form of costumes for a historical reenactment, homemade math manipulatives, a new curtain for the local auditorium, toys, a pet habitat, a messy science experiment, or a zillion other things. Best of all, you don't need expensive hardware, or to start by mastering a programming language. You can begin with found materials: buttons, bottle caps, string, clay, construction paper, broken toys, popsicle sticks, or tape (hint: Google "tapigami" or "duck tape projects"). What are you having your students "make" to help them learn English?"

Great infogrpahic that creates a great image of Sci-Fi information that I was explaining to students not long ago. Much clearer here!

This is a great visual to back up my teaching. We had a session last week where I was explaining this information to a year 8 science class as they embarked on a major research project. You know some" get it" but others are still struggle with evaluating a source even if the agree as to the why. This is clean and concise.

"Children learn through play and exploration. From floating sticks downstream to ducks in the tub, early lessons in how the world works come from play.  By building upon play, a mode of learning that is rooted in curiosity and joy, we can engage our students in a truly authentic way. For instance, a project involving electronics can be launched with a session with circuit boards, or wood working with a one-block challenge. Both of these activities originate from two of my favorite resources for exploration-based maker activities: the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium, and the Makerspace at the New York Hall of Science. "

How to teach text structures for better reading comprehension and improved retention. Teachers of history, science, and other subjects are now expected to weave literacy instruction into their teaching of content. But how should they do that? What are the most effective ways to help students learn to read challenging content-area texts? This article breaks down the research behind explicit teaching of text structures and includes a video that shows how to do it (Great for content-area literacy)

"Makerspaces are collaborative workshops where young people gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects. They provide a flexible environment where learning is made physical by applying science, technology, math, and creativity to solve problems and build things." Ideas, costings and discussion about makerspaces.

This post presents Dr Many Lupton's analysis of the Australian Curriculum v6.0. Inquiry skills and information literacy are embedded in the Australian Curriculum in the subject areas Science, History, Geography, Economics and Business (draft), Civics and Citizenship (draft, and in the general capabilities Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) .

"The animated video describes the six universal Principles of Persuasion that have been scientifically proven to make you most effective as reported in Dr. Cialdini's groundbreaking book, Influence" useful ideas to keep in mind

"The author's use of "literary nonfiction" accommodates all the definitions. It includes finely-crafted texts that tend to win awards, sell best to schools and libraries, and make ideal mentor texts. It may be narrative nonfiction, including many kinds of life stories (biographies/autobiographies/memoirs); poetry; or expository/informational books with a strong voice, innovative format and text structure, and rich, engaging language."

Blog post discussing this literature "For the most part, the authors fully realized that these books should be classified as fiction, and they liked the term "informational fiction" because it acknowledged all the research they'd done and that the books were mostly faithful to the facts. But the Library of Congress labelled these books "juvenile literature" (the term they use for nonfiction). And in most cases, publishers and reviewers called the books narrative nonfiction."