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Jessica Simon

Improve School Culture and Climate " - 10 views

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    High-performing urban schools have climates that nurture the commitment and engagement of teachers, parents, and students. This short video by Dr. Lynne Perez from the National Center for Urban School Transformation and Power Pont detail the perspectives/attitudes of parents, teachers, and students from successful urban schools.
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    I think one of the most important take-aways from this was the info regarding the climate for parents. I believe that parents have a huge role in the success of their student. The ideas presented in the PowerPoint would be great to share with any school system, not just urban.
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    I agree with you Julie. I also think that having an administrator who cares deeply about the students, as well as, the teachers is essential. Teachers want and need that support. If they do not have that security, it can be reflected in their teaching and be absorbed by students and student learning.
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    A few things stood out to me from this video/power point. Successful urban schools have students who are "eager to come to school," "believe that they are likely to succeed academically," and everyone feels "valued, respected, and appreciated." For that to be the case, individual cultures and learning styles must be explored, accepted, and appreciated. If students feel uncomfortable or out of place, they certainly won't feel eager to come to school. Likewise, we need to strive to make students aware of their success and give them role models with whom they can identify who have been successful. Another point that stood out to me was the collaboration and sharing between teachers. I hope that Indiana's new teacher evaluation system does not create competitiveness and animosity between teachers that diminishes sharing between teachers. It seems like it has already begun to do that in my school. Sometimes, I have special situations where I want to cross-team a student or have him/her take a class in a different grade level. Teachers are unwilling to take these "special case" kids next year if they feel are unlikely to make growth in their classes. Others who have found great techniques are not sharing them with other teachers in their department, because they know their growth scores will be compared. Is anyone else experiencing a similar situation in your school?
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    As a guy who teaches high school and does not consider himself a nurturer, I very much wanted to disagree with everything said and believe the "no excuses" tag line of the article that Lauren posted. But I do believe that a large part of the success in schools is students wanting to come to school (whether they'll admit or not) and parents believing the school has their childrens' best interest at heart. This is particularly difficult to do in an economically disadvantaged community where parents tend to be suspicious of schools.
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    I agree that students wanting to come to school is a big part of it's success. I really dislike hearing from students "I hate this school" etc. That is why nurturing them and making them feel wanted is important. If they feel wanted then they will want to be at school. When parents see this and hear from their child how much they enjoy being at school they will also be on board too. Thank you for sharing this!
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    I think the concept of this video is relevant. Brian you said you do not believe you are a nurturer; however, I think all educators are to some degree. I think nurturer is often translated to caudle, which is not the case. Teachers have an obligation to provide their students with the best possible education. This education does not just develop overnight. It takes a variety of components to bring it all together. We know students need to feel safe in their environment. We know that students need to feel accepted in order to collaborate and communicate to the best of their abilities. If students feel stifled, they lose to drive to achieve in a class. A big part of this develops within the social and emotional aspects of school. With this is mind, educators are nurturers. Doesn't mean you can't hold your students to high standards. Doesn't mean you let them make excuses for themselves. No matter traditional or progressive. Strict or lenient. Teachers by nature are nurturers because we help our students. I am a high school teacher too, and I still make sure that my students are comfortable and confident in their classroom because I know they will engage and learn more if I do.
chuxhold

Preparing Teachers for Urban Settings: Changing Teacher Education by Changing Ourselves - 6 views

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    Article abstract: This article explored "the personal and professional changes experienced by a teacher education faculty who embarked on a joint project relating to urban education. The faculty members committed to write book chapters applying their areas of expertise to the challenge of preparing teachers for urban schools." With a qualitative research design, the results showed a detailed description of the staff's "discoveries, thoughts, doubts, and reflections at three points during the project" The study's results revealed "an evolving perspective on urban education focusing upon understanding the lived experiences of the children" as a means of implementing meaningful education for these urban students.
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    Many faculty members felt keenly the responsibility to educate these preservice teachers about the challenges of urban education: - "[We have a] responsibility to meet the needs of the children in urban schools...[My goal is] to steer the initiative home so that we can say that, my goodness, we really are better able now to prepare our students to work in those kind of environments" (RP, 8/12, p. 4). - "I think it's the teacher's professional obligation to find a way to reach whatever children they are working with" (CC, 8/26, p. 2). - "I think preservice teachers need to know the difference between urban school settings and suburban and rural school settings and they need to be prepared for those differences in their teaching...I think most of all the project is helping me gain a better insight into those differences which will affect how I teach my students..." (TG, 11/6, p. 1).
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    The qualitative study found that teachers demonstrated both commitment and excitement. However, these educators were faced with hesitation and confusion, "because of the lack of personal or professional experiences in urban schools, the complexity of the issue, and/or the cohesiveness of the [study's] book"
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    I think what I'm starting to see is that the essence...is not developing recipes, quick fixes and a how-to-do-it book as much as it is to begin to talk about the need for understanding such issues as passion, resilience, compensatory kind of skills...I'm getting more to the point of talking about what a person takes into the environment...So if we try to just give our students a whole lot of tricks saying this will work and that will work I think we're setting them up for failure. So we've got to try to turn some of their attitude into philosophy and understanding of the urban setting. It's more knowledge and attitude than it is a skill. That's a change. That's not the way I was approaching it (ST, 11/6, pp. 1-2).
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    I agree that a lack of experiences in urban schools causes hesitation and confusion. I remember going to a school-wide urban education training when I first started teaching in my district. Having some experience with attending and student teaching in an urban school setting, I was astounded by the lack of knowledge of some of my peers. Most of them thought they would be able to build relationships with the students right away and demand their respect. As our student population changed and we gained experience, we became less hesitant and started brainstorming ways to involve our ever-changing community in order to develop better relationships.
Sarah Livengood

Key Learning Community - 5 views

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    The Key Learning Community is based upon the Theory of Multiple Intelligences developed by Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University. I visited Key during my undergraduate work. I am a huge fan of Howard Gardner.
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    Are you familiar with the work of Elizabeth Cohen? She builds on Gardner's work, and moves it into the realm of "assigning competencies," acknowledging and developing students' assets that are often overlooked.
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    More information regarding Elizabeth Cohen. http://www.uvm.edu/complexinstruction/about_ci.html
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    I am also a fan of Dr. Howard Gardner. With my profession, I think it is so important to realize the whole-child and finding ways where all students can succeed. My high school friend did Teach for America with Kipp Indy. She fell in love with the school's mission and commitment to learning. After her 2 years with TFA, she stayed on and is now a coordinator for collegiate education.
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    I really appreciated what Ron Smith, the principal, said: "Children are naturally curious about the world and they have many ways of expressing what they know. They have questions of their own that should be taken seriously by the adults who surround them." I think this applies to all levels of learners. Curiosity and intrigue are so important as students grow academically. This is why probing questions were invented! Heuristic thinking and wonderments from our students allow them to explore and discover new meanings and gain new knowledge. I just really found myself connected to this statement and thought about the applications inside my own classroom.
Amanda McIntyre

Preschool Reform: 5 Ways to Fix Pre-K in the U.S. - TIME - 3 views

    • Amanda McIntyre
       
      Preschool/Kindergarten are the first steps in an education career.
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    Take two kids, one from a low-income family, the other middle class. Let them run around and do little-kid things in their respective homes and then, at age 5, enroll them in kindergarten.
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    "Research shows that when the first day of school rolls around, the child from the low-income household will be as many as 1.5 years behind grade level in terms of language and prereading and premath skills. The middle-class kid will be as many as 1.5 years ahead. This means that, by the time these two 5-year-olds start school, the achievement gap between them is already as great as three years." I used to teach a bilingual prekindergarten class. It was grant-funded and had only 12 children. It was incredible how much progress those children could make in a year. They were nearly all from impoverished families and nearly all spoke exclusively Spanish at home. I had seen many start kindergarten and be "behind" for years. Yet, my students all started well-prepared, most of them reading, counting, and doing simple addition and subtraction. Unfortunately, the organization I worked for did not sustain its finding. Now I work with middle school kids, and although I love working with them, I often feel like I'm cleaning up a mess that could have been prevented through quality pre-kindergarten.
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    You are right, Jill. This is one of the conclusive pieces of educational research out there. And, it's one of the initiatives that has growing support in Indy, yet they can't seem to convince policy-makers at the capitol. Yet another reason why we need to check ourselves when we throw around the phrase "achievement gap" given that there are many structural factors that contribute to differentiated tests scores.
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    I was not surprised at all by the research data of 5 year olds from low-income households compared to those from middle-class households. Lately, the number of students I have in first and second grades with delayed language development is increasing. I am now using teaching time to help catch those students up on basic language skills that their peers have already developed. Those students who have those basic skills are already ahead of the game...think of how much more ahead they will be in the years to come.
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    I feel this shows how important it is to start educating children at a young age.
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    This topic/article really strikes home for me. One of my dearest friends works in Mississippi in a Pre-K class. Her effervescent personality, dedication, and perservance would make any child want to come to school. She is in a very high poverty school system but overcomes this obstacle in her teaching and with her students. Preschool children are at an age where money and SES have no baring but influence and change do. Thanks for sharing this article!
chuxhold

Miss Grundy Was Fired Today - 4 views

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    The traditional, patronizing view of teachers, that they are to be treated like saints and paid as if they'd taken a vow of poverty, has lately gone through a schizophrenic inversion. Open the newspaper most any day and you'll read about "bad teachers" who are holding children back and, through their unions, conspiring to remain well compensated.
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    It does seem that teachers are constantly in a negative light in the media these days. I like this quote from the article, "Until fairly recently, everyone took it for granted that parents, educators, and communities shared the responsibility for schooling children, and presumed that outcomes were the product of a complex web of circumstances. Now the calculus has been narrowed to a single variable, the instructors, who are offered all the credit and shoulder all the blame." It seems most of the discussion surrounding school reform centers on teachers vs. reformers and nothing else. Even Kennedy only focused on the happenings inside the classroom to explain reform failure. While I do think teachers are a HUGE part of the reform movement, there are a lot of other people who could be involved as well.
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    I have to agree that school reform involves a lot of key players inside and outside of the classroom. Kennedy mentioned throughout her text this notion. I liked how she mentioned that teachers feel a lot pressure from within their own schools and by their teammates. During our professional development meetings, I can see the gears going amongst my colleagues as we are listening about RISE, SLO, and even the many other acronyms of RISE. They are feeling the pressure to develop realistic but achieveable objectives. Third-fifth grade teachers are beginning to look combative towards the primary grades as the younger grades don't have the pressure of ISTEP. However, K-2nd grade teachers have the pressure of preparing these students early so they CAN pass ISTEP. It seems like this could be a vicious cycle and it's only in the beginning stages. I think it would be more of a relief for teachers if they had that reassurance and support from districts, government, and other reformers - instead of feeling the pressures and responsibilities within the school walls.
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    When I read this article it reminds me of Mr. Kimberly from the Kennedy book. Here is a man who I think the public is percieving to be a "bad teacher" because he takes no accountability and still wants to be compensated for his work. I think when public perception is that most people are like him, then it is understandable why there would be anti union movement. If people feel like the union is the only reason why the Mr. Kimberlys are around then I see why they want to disband them. From the other side though, there are a lot of hard working teachers who hold themselves accountable and there is nothing wrong with trying to get as much compensation as they can. Like any profession there is a business aspect to everything. Another issue that builds animosity is that there is a large number of non-teachers who think they know what teaching is like and think it should be easy, but have never dealt with the daily issues that arise from a teacher standpoint. We all think that since we were once students we know what teaching is like, but being a student and being a teacher are two different worlds.
Edward Touloukian

Math reform in Chicago Schools - 3 views

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    This is an article about how some Chicago schools are using a math software to give students a more individualized curriculum that they can work through at their own pace. We piloted a similar type program at our school for our lower level math classess and it seems to work well for them.
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    The news release from Apangea Learning is pretty interesting, in that it highlights another method in which reforms are being implemented to improve student performance. I am curious to see how many more of these sorts of endeavors in recent years have been these kinds of public-private partnerships, where private organizations or companies have teamed with public schools to pilot new programming to improve students' efforts. The CEO's comment makes it seem that the model extended to Chicago was already one implemented and seeing success in other major cities across the U.S. I'd be curious to see if this is sort of a business model that the company is pursuing (focusing on partnerships with public schools in major cities).
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    This is interesting to me because it ties in technology to drive differentiated instruction for students. Makes me wonder if, as this becomes increasingly more popular, other subject matters will be handled in the same way?
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    Edward, I work in a district that switched from Apangea to an online, personalized instruction program called ALEKS ( http://www.aleks.com/ ). 6th through 8th grade teachers use this program as a supplement to their lessons. The students take a pretest to find out their strengths and weaknesses. The program will then create a pie that contains topics in which the students to more practice. Many teachers have students meet a topics goal. One teacher has used this program almost exclusively to teach math. The teacher that uses it almost exclusively float around the classroom assisting students as necessary. As you may think, it has been controversial among teachers in the building.
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    I JUST came from a math training today and it seemed very relevant to this article. My district is thinking of adopting EQUALS curriculum. EQUALS was also developed by the same company as ALEKS. My school is currently using ALEKS as a math intervention for 4th-5th resource students. They love this computer program because it can be very individualized to meet kids' needs. EQUALS uses this same notion with their math curriculum. Many demos and videos were shown of students with moderate and severe disabilities and took place in an urban setting. These students faced many challenges but the curriculum was leveled and differentiated for every student. A teacher testimony revealed that her student's abilities were originally misjudged until this program. She was an ENL student and the math program help prove her math knowledge was a lot higher than perceived. I think this shows how important curriculum, design, and instruction is!
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    This sounds like a very promising and exciting program. It combines two very relevant topics to our current day and age and those are math and technology. It's also a very creative way to tailor education to each student, and hopefully, students would find it as entertaining or fun as playing a game on the computer.
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    Our school also uses ALEKS. I like it a lot as a supplement to the classroom. It helps differentiate instruction and allows students to work on the skills that they need. I become nervous, however, when classrooms use this exclusively and completely take the teacher out of the equation. Students can learn very easily how to manipulate programs in order to rush through them with very little knowledge gained.
Randy Ebright

JACKSON: Tenure reform crucial to improving urban schools | The Asbury Park Press NJ | ... - 0 views

  • The Black Ministers’ Council has long supported, and continues to support, efforts like the Opportunity Scholarship Act for children in our lowest-performing urban schools.
  • a teacher’s ability to increase student achievement on standardized assessments tracks improved life outcomes for those students in critical areas,
  • Our urban students are more likely to be assigned an inexperienced teacher — which is bad for both the teacher and the student — more likely to have a substitute and more likely to have a teacher teaching out-of-subject specialization.
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  • Given the premise that teachers are vital and that students’ ability to demonstrate their knowledge is equally important — which should seem obvious but is hotly contested — it only follows that the conference and acquisition of tenure should be linked in some manner to these factors.
  • We change how teachers are evaluated and how we reward them with the prestige of tenure.
  • What is true here is that the current system is utterly unfair to students
  • an excellent teacher and a quality education.
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    This article discusses how many urban schools struggle with the plague of inexperienced and/or ineffective teachers because teachers with experience, as well as those who have proven to be effective, are often drawn away from urban schools and into suburban/private schools. Additionally, this article states the if the goal is to give each student an equal opportunity to succeed in the classroom and in life, then teachers need to be evaluated based on their students' scores and not on years of experience so that each school can have effective teachers. 
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    It seems like most schools always want the teachers that have experience, but how are new teachers to gain experience if they are not given any opportunities? Schools need to work with new teachers that are unexperienced and help them gain the knowledge and insights they need to become a successful teacher in an urban school.
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    I can't help but wonder why teachers are drawn away from urban schools to suburban/private schools. Why did they teach in urban schools in the first place? While there is surely a wide range of reasons, I am reminded of an article I recently read about the "missionary" mentality, where a sub-group of teachers (as the result of their lived experiences) naively think that Black and Brown students need to be saved from themselves and their communities. As you can see, this mindset is the product of deficit orientations to what students know and are able to do. I continue to want to know what solidarity looks like between students and teachers, and how to develop that. It should be noted, too, that this is not just a White teacher thing. Though less attention has been given to it, I have seen Black and Latina/o teachers "other" their students of color. I'll save my explanation for why I think this happens, but the point is that we grow up and are socialized to strive for and attain a certain standard, based on a certain value system. When this doesn't align with others' values, we tend to make judgements about what is "right" and "best". Obviously, this is bigger than teacher preparation programs, but teacher ed. programs can offer different kinds of experiences that afford candidates opportuntites to see students, families and communities in a different light. Same with practicing teachers - I'm reminded of the Funds of Knowledge work our of Tucson, AZ (Norma Gonzalez, Luis Moll et al.) Definitely raised some good points, Randy and Jordan.
Sarah Livengood

If Schools Are Broken, What Is the Solution? Answer: Urban School Reform-WRONG! - 18 views

"An urban portfolio of choices is sensible policy when you are uncertain which ways are best to get low-income children to learn and achieve in school." Deborah Meier would agree that choices are ...

kdamiano

Project-Based Learning: Real-World Issues Motivate Students | Edutopia - 0 views

  • engaging students by starting with the concrete and solving hands-on, real-world problems is a great motivator.
    • kdamiano
       
      We know that students learning through experience, which is why I think PBL can really help reshape and reform what education is and means to this nation. If we want to be the leading country in engineering or mathematics or reading, than we need to allow our students to experience and explore these fields. 
  • "Everybody is motivated by challenge and solving problems, and we don't make use of that in schools enough,"
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      We must hold our students to high expectations. I think allowing them to explore their curiosities and struggles is one of the most useful and impacting ways to learn. 
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      This is where I could see teachers currently seeing a problem because with the restraints schools are placed in with time, curriculum, etc this amount of time is filled to the brim with material. I could see this being a big issue because of what is "expected" of teachers today. 
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  • In project-based learning, students try to answer a question -- one that has relevance for them -- that is greater than the immediate task at hand.
  • "One of the major advantages of project work is that it makes school more like real life,"
    • kdamiano
       
      When students have a vested interest in what they are learning, they are more apt to put forth the time. They are more likely try their best. 
  • "in-depth investigation of a real-world topic worthy of children's attention and effort." She advocates a three-phased approach: Phase 1 involves an initial discussion of a project topic, including children's firsthand experiences related to the topic. Phase 2 involves fieldwork, sessions with experts, and various aspects of gathering information, reading, writing, drawing, and computing. Phase 3 is the presentation of the project to an audience.
  • Kids who are excited about what they learn tend to dig more deeply and to expand their interest in learning to a wide array of subjects. They retain what they learn rather than forget it as soon as they disgorge it for a test. They make connections and apply their learning to other problems. They learn how to collaborate, and their social skills improve. They are more confident talking to groups of people, including adults. And, as a number of research reports suggest, project-based learning correlates positively with improved test scores, reduced absenteeism, and fewer disciplinary problems.
    • kdamiano
       
      Isn't it sad that we know this, yet reformer do little to acknowledge the impact of learning like this? 
Craig Willey

News from the NEPC: Bunkum Awards Spotlight Shoddy Education Research - 1 views

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    Grand Prize Winner Says Charter Schools Should be Like Cancer Contact: Boulder, CO (May 31, 2012) -- The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder, has announced via online video the winners of the 2011 Bunkum Awards -presented for the most compellingly lousy educational research for the past year.
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    NEPC might be an organization you are interested in checking out. They provide a unique service to the education community: they arrange careful and timely reviews, by the nation's leading scholars, of foundations' and policy groups' (among other groups) research reports.As can be detected from this headline, they are strategically intervening in the faulty pipeline that puts shoddy "research" results in the hands of policy makers, who often times don't have the background to view these exceedingly complex issues with a nuanced perspective like that we are developing.
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