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Pen Tricks and Differentiation

heather — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:02:12 +0000

OK, for those of you not in the pen spinning loop, I’m talking about a craze that’s preoccupying tween fingers all over the known universe, or at least in my district. Of pen spinning, or object manipulation, as a sport, wikipedia says:

Called “ronin mawashi” in Japan, where it is popular among the pre-collegiate community, pen twirling has its stars, as does any other performance or skill. Accomplished masters of the art form that are well-known — at least among those who follow the sport — have developed a reputation for creation of certain signature ‘moves’. David Weis is credited with creating numerous ‘back’ style moves, such as the “BackAround”. Hideaki Kondoh is generally credited with giving the pen trick “Sonic” its name, because of the way the pen would blur in his fingers.

Pen spinning only recently saw a rapid increase in recognition due to the emergence of internet media websites such as YouTube. From 2006 onwards, the art of Pen spinning has developed subcultures in many countries of the world including the Asiatic-regions and Europe (France, Germany and Poland).

And as the year closes up, I’ve noticed as of late an increase in modified pen spinning, haven’t you? So naturally if there’s an obsession in my class that has little to do with our content, I look to my own practice and what the addition may say about my level of engagement (or lack thereof.)

I wonder if I feel the same way that teachers must have felt about rubics cubes or hackysacks when they came on the scene. This feeling of, “what’s going on around me? When did this start? And Why didn’t I get the memo?” In the past, when something like this occurs, I normally become somewhat efficient in the activity so I can join in the conversation. I’ve gotten a lot of play out of my own World of Warcraft obsession, after all.

But in this case, my fingers just can’t do the darn tricks. My dad has always said he can’t press the little buttons on the iPhone because of his Eastern European immigrant fingers. I’ll chalk it up to that with my inability to do the pen spinning thing too. But even though I can’t do it, at least I can learn about it. And I can touch base with those kids who I may not have reached yet, and when I ask them to put it away (“If you’re spinning your mods, you clearly don’t have pen to paper”) I get more smiles and buy-in because the kids know I’m not after them personally.

I hear of teachers practically having conniption fits when the propelling blurs begin. But I’m pretty calm about it, I mean, I have to ask the bigger questions when the whirring begins: The students claim that they are merely thinking, but really are they bored? Are more of them kinesthetic learners than I thought and this is a true visual indication of just how many students are antsy in their seats each day? Are they desirous of a shop class back on the schedule, something that is about creating, supping up, in this case, pimping their pen? Or are they just struggling to find individuality in a standardized prison, actually showing their own desire for differentiation by modifying anything that they can get their hands on?

It’s also kinda a boy thing, right? And we’re all looking to reach out to those tween boys. Girls have been showing their individuality for a while now: stickers on binders when they are younger, magazine collages inserted into the binder plastic by middle school. But this pen craze seems more like a boy-centric version of the same thing, the need for attention, the need to create their own machine, the need to show off the variables that they changed to accomplish something better than the other guys sitting next to them.

So when I see a tween obsession, my most important question is How can I harness it? Do I have them do a step-by-step assignment on How to modify your pen for ultimate spinning possibilities? So I have them write a guide with links to pages for further resources?

Students will find ways to differentiate themselves. While we all know that tweens desire to be part of a group, they also desire individuality, and the knowledge that they are being evaluated as individuals. So whether it’s whole group or small group work, I need to make sure there are outlets and evaluations for the individuals as well. And even when I have the students working alone, I ask myself how I can allow them the opportunities to tweak their own learning to make it applicable for themselves.

So many teachers are intimidated at the thought of individualizing the curriculum for each student, but maybe the students need to take ownership of that job; let’s call it curriculum modification rather than differentiation, and then it is really up to us, the teachers, to give students the opportunities to modify for themselves.

Back to pen spinning: what do you think, dear reader? I don’t want to fight something that should be exploited. How do we tap into a current obsession and make it something applicable in the classroom?

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Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, education, k12, pen spinning, pen tricks, tweens

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Part 2 of 3: The Future of Teacher Prep Programs

heather — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:26:08 +0000

In yesterday’s post, Part I of 3: The Future of Teacher Prep Programs, I fantasized about what a credential program might look like years down the line. Here is Part II of my post that will address the following points:

The Staff

Awards Towards a Differentiated Credential

Again, I feel the need to reiterate that I do not have the answers. This is my brainstorm, backed up with nothing more than my musings. I don’t know how to fund it. What I do know is that there are problems with our current credential programs, and to solve them first takes dreaming…

______________________________________________________________________________________

The staff: Once a candidate is accepted into a teacher prep program, he or she will find that every classroom houses a current expert. That is, an educator that is still a part-time classroom teacher teaches every class. The staff must be made up of teachers who straddle both worlds, that of the classroom teacher and the educator of teachers. Many of our present day programs have lived the end of the adage, “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.” OK, so that isn’t the real ending of the adage, and it’s probably not that old, but it’s no less true. Teacher credential programs of the future change that perception.

In the future, classroom teachers can apply to be Master Teachers in prep programs as a hybrid teacher career path. Teachers who are on such paths are actually salaried by the prep program but receive their health insurance through the school district as a means to split the compensation for the teacher and their contribution to both institutions. It is vital to the prep program that their teachers be working classroom teachers, and it is brag-able to a district to have a certain number of Master Teachers in their classrooms.

Awards Towards a Differentiated Credential: We need to indicate that there are those who graduate with a credential and those who graduate with Honors in Education. Thereby the credential itself becomes differentiated. The teacher preparation programs of tomorrow award a Chiron Award to graduating candidates of great potential. Think about Chiron, the centaur, who taught Jason, Heracles, Ajax, and Percy Jackson. This mythical teacher represented all things wise, kind, and equitable. He was noble, and his ability to teach allowed him to become immortal, earning him a place in the constellations.

This award has some weight for potential future employers not unlike PhiBetaKappa might have with others. Schools staffed with multiple Chiron Award recipients are rare, but the winners are sought after as some of the best and brightest new teachers in our country. This award and its recipients represent the teacher we are all supposed to want to be.

Perhaps being awarded this or other created badges will allow a new teacher to enter the salary scale at a higher level or some other incentive. Regardless, in the teacher prep programs of the future, the credentials are possibly as differentiated as are the candidates.

Soon to Come: Part 3 of 3: The Future of Teacher Prep Programs

The Curriculum

The Student Teacher Apprenticeship Program

Relationships Between Districts and Teacher Prep Programs

Graduation Requirements

…And Beyond

Looking at categories like these, the staff and ways to differentiate the teacher credential, what is your fantasy for the future of teacher prep programs?

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Post tags: differentiation, teacher credential, teacher preparation

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Part I of 3: The Future of Teacher Prep Programs

heather — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:05:50 +0000

My credential program was more of a necessary hoop than a valuable preparation program. My Ed Psych professor read his screenplay to us all semester long. My Methods of Math professor hadn’t been in a classroom for 30 years, and before then, it was only for six months. I never had a class in Classroom Management, and in one class I was even asked to work in a small group with an obviously violent, mentally unstable individual who was only one class away from his student teaching. So I’ve clearly spent some time thinking about the future of teacher credential programs and their role in the future of our profession.

So time travel with me to some year in the future as I mull over the possibilities for a more honest and rigorous path to the classroom. Allow me some leniency here. I am not an economist. I am fantasizing about a program that can only exist in a funded world, and my suggestions of possible funding revenue may come from fantasy as well, but they are meant to try to stir up some out-of-the-box possibilities. I have not solved everything. There are holes in my logic. But my blog is sometimes by place of brainstorm not final draft, and if you’d like, I’d love to hear your brainstorms as well.

So today I’m going to start a 3 part series on this fantasy Teacher Prep Program of mine. Part I will focus on the following:

The Overall Vision

The Application Process

Options for Second Career Teachers

So here we go into my fantasyland. Join me at your own risk.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The Overall Vision: The year is 2030 and I’m still waiting for the jetpack promised to me. On a more positive note, at least the teacher credentialing programs of the future have become a more honest introduction to the challenges and rewards of teaching, while also becoming a more accurate predictor of a candidate’s future teaching quality. While todays programs are all about teaching the standards, the teacher preparation programs of the future are all about The Three Cs: Content, Communication, and Character.

It is actually more affordable for a candidate to seek a credential then ever before because the in-your-seat portion of the program is shorter (and available online as well as offline), and the student teaching portion is treated more like a paid-apprenticeship than free help in the classroom.

Teacher credential programs have become as differentiated as the quality of teachers they produce, luring folks from every profession to share their knowledge with students of all levels. But while there is flexibility of path to achieve a credential, the programs have become a more rigorous gatekeeper for the profession as a whole, allowing those who have achieved a credential appropriate awe at a party. Hey, it’s my fantasy, right?

The application process: To get into a teacher preparation program, candidates can come from a BA program or a profession, yet all have gone through a rigorous application process. The requirements to gain entrance into a program should once again be driven by the 3 Cs: Content, Communication, and Character. The process includes letters of recommendation, personal interview, content exams or transcripts or a Professional Evidence Portfolio, and answers to questions of how someone would handle particular scenarios.

Here is an excerpt from a teacher preparation program application:

Question #3. Student A never turns in his homework, is absent from school often, comes to class late when he does decide to show, and yet still manages to get Cs on his test. You tell him to come after school to make up some work, but the kid never shows. You’ve called the parent, but he or she has never returned your calls, and besides, they are the ones dropping him off late or perhaps even letting him stay at home. He’s not disruptive in class, but the kids won’t work with him, because they can’t depend on him to keep up his share of the work. His notebook is totally empty. Have you done enough to reach this student? What can you do to help him connect to school?

Professional Evidence Portfolio: Let’s say a dad of two young kids has just been struck by lightning with the realization that he’s just GOT to teach. He’s been working in a cubical analyzing data for 10 years and it’s supported his family, but he really misses using that math degree in a more social way. How does that guy make a leap to another ladder while still supporting his family? After all, we can’t expect a father of two to drop his paying job for 2 ? years or more of unpaid, hoop jumping.

Well the teacher credential programs of the future will allow a person to do just that. Professional evidence can be exchanged for content area exams or transcripts. A person can create a portfolio of content expertise proof in the form of Excel spreadsheets, business letters, company communications, etc…

On the onset of the application process, each candidate is provided with an advisor to help guide him or her in the creation of this Professional Evidence Portfolio. The counselor also has the authority to deny the application if there is not enough evidence to prove content area expertise, and can advise the candidate towards appropriate options like content area exams or classes.

Teacher prep programs of the future don’t lower their standards or cut corners just to allow flexibility for second career teachers. What they do is create other paths that will allow people to find teaching later in their lives. Teaching cannot be a sloppy second to some other career that didn’t work out. But getting a credential will be possible for those who have the skills and the knowledge to impart. Professional Evidence is a form of career credits, serving to exchange world and life knowledge for passage into a teacher prep program.

A Professional Evidence Portfolio also may allow for waiver of two of the classes in the program’s in-class strand (see next post).

Soon to come, Part II: The Future of Teacher Prep Programs

The Staff

Awards Towards Differentiating A Credential

So, breaking it down into these Part I categories, what does your fantasy future teacher prep program look like?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: application, credential programs, differentiation, second career teacher, teacher credential

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I’ll Take that Education to Go: Individualization vs. Standardization

heather — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:42:19 +0000

We live in a world of double-decaf-non-fat-lattes-with-room. We live in a world that is slowly beginning to customize everything from our coffee orders to our spa treatments. But it won’t just stop with luxury items.

Some teachers complain about the effort that differentiation entails, that need to offer rigorous curriculum for a wide range of learners. But just you wait: individualization is coming just around the corner, where students will be able to order up their own education, their own schedule of classes to go. And those schedules won’t be limited to what’s only offered on their school site.(...)
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Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, individualization, k12, middle schoool, standardization, standardized testing

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Studies Find There’s No Such Thing as Learning Styles – As Teachers, Should We Care?

heather — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:00:44 +0000

According to Psychcentral.com, “Learning Styles are being re-evaluated” and negated. This theory, according to a recently published journal article claims that there is really no research out there to prove that students learn differently from one another.

Shrug. Cue eye roll.(...)
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Post tags: differentiation, learning styles, multi, multiple-intelligences, standardization, syn-naps, test scores

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Costa’s Levels of Questioning and Student-Designed Assessments

heather — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:41:37 +0000

So this week I introduced Costa’s Levels of Questioning to my students. We have some teachers on my site talking about these triggers of metacognition so it compliments everyone’s efforts to enter this discussion in the classroom. Costa’s is, in a nutshell, a more staccato version of Bloom’s, making it more accessible to more students. Rather than talk using a vocabulary of 6 categories of learning, we muscle it down to three. No matter, it’s the discussion that counts.

I begin my lesson by asking them why people go to the gym. “To work out their muscles,” a student inevitably says.(...)
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Post tags: assessments, bloom's, costa's levels, differentiation, multiple-intelligences, student-driven instrustion

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Facebook Quizzes and Lesson Planning

heather — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:05:16 +0000

It used to be 4 colors that defined the differences between personalities: gold, blue, green, and orange. Then it advanced to 8 slices of a pie used to categorize the different intelligences: linguistic, logical, naturalistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual/spatial, kinesthetic, musical. There are also 3 defined learning styles: auditory, visual, and tactile.

But in the world of Facebook, you are infinitely defined by any thematic quiz you could imagine. And the way I see it, it’s just the same old, same old personality type quiz…but more tailored to you. In other words…differentiated.

For instance, according to the Facebook world of personality quizzes, I am the following (like in Jeopardy, try to think of the question that goes with the answer):

Water

Viola

A Hobbit

Jean Grey

Prof. Lupin

I have no real idea what all this information really means about me, but it’s a fun way to kill a couple of commercial break minutes during “So You Think You Can Dance,” does it not?

Anyway, all these quizzes got me thinking. If you are a teacher using a multiple intelligences quiz in your classroom with your students, maybe it would be worthwhile, from a student choice/student ownership point of view, to have students develop their own quizzes of sorts. Perhaps they can design their own topics of categorization and administer these quizzes to other students? Would that not add additional ownership towards reflection?

I guess what I’m picturing is students gathering their own information about characters from books they’ve read during the year: traits, internal conflicts, flaws, life themes, skills, etc…and developing some kind of Facebook-esque flowchart that allows fellow students to follow a path towards a given answer. Then the quiz author must provide a concise paragraph description of that character to distribute to students who qualify as that character.

If I understand it properly, to produce something like this offline, a student might only need index cards to create a flowchart to track answers towards the end. Online, however, a student might use a program like this one.

I can see the value in this lesson and activity. It serves as a review of a book or perhaps even covers the standard of Multiple Works By A Single Author. The creation of the quiz itself is a differentiated assessment of the student who writes it. It’s a cross-curricular assessment possibility:

Science: What Planet Are You? (applying science, mythology, and character traits to the planets)

History: Which English Monarch Are You? Caesar? Inventor?

Language Arts: Which Book That We’re Read This Year?

Math: Which Algorithm Are You? (assigning traits to different equations as well as understanding the purposes behind their discoveries)

As I’ve noted before, lessons can come from wacky places. Keep your ears and eyes open, and you’ll have fresh lessons to start the new year off in an interesting way both for you and your students.

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Post tags: assessments, briggs-meyers, cross-curricular, differentiation, facebook, lesson planning, multiple-intelligences, quizzes, standards

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Standards Conversation #1: Should Education Take a Tip from Starbucks?

heather — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:08:26 +0000

Starbucks is the ultimate in differentiation. In fact, it’s built an empire on providing individualized, one-on-one product to any member of its clientele, no questions asked. Cute, young baristas (some with piercings, some without) hand out drinks with a smile, acting as if our order were the most important.

I think the public believes that education should also be like that. Every person in the classroom should be able to order his or her own specialized education. And it should come delivered with a smile and the certainty that your journey is more important than anyone else’s. (...)
Read the rest of Standards Conversation #1: Should Education Take a Tip from Starbucks? (497 words)

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Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, ELA, middle school, national standards, standards

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Student-Designed Schools

heather — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:47:19 +0000

This year, my 8th graders all produced a multi-genre project during 4th Quarter that focused on possible careers of their choice. But I went a step further with my 8th grade Honors class. They not only had to research a possible career, but they then had to each relate it to educational reform and school design.(...)
Read the rest of Student-Designed Schools (680 words)

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Post tags: collaboration, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, ELA, k12, Language Arts, middle school, tween

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Teaching Secrets: Finding a Job That You Love

heather — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:33:00 +0000

Know a teacher who got a pink slip? Maybe my newest post at Teacher Magazine can help. Click here for the article.

It’s Step 1 of my Top Secret New Teacher Handbook. Hope it creates some shortcuts, a machete even, through the education jungle.

-Tweenteacher

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Post tags: achievement gap, blog, classroom library, classroom management, collaboration, common language, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, internet literacy, jobs, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, life long learners, merit pay, metacognition, middle school, NCLB, new teachers, peer teaching, performance pay, professional development, technology, test prep, Think Aloud, Title I, TLN, top 10, tween, UCI, Writers Project

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Top 10: How to Take Control of Your Teaching

heather — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Occasionally, I repost this article so that new readers can find it more easily. Based on some very enthusiastic feedback, it has since morphed into a book proposal called The Top Secret New Teachers Handbook. I’ll share more as it evolves…

I’ve been developing this Top 10 list of ways to take control of your teaching even in the face of, well, teaching. It’s an advice list on how to encourage respect, and, if necessary, how to demand it as a means to make sure you aren’t being taken for granted.

Let’s face it, if you are feeling appreciated, you will be happier in this difficult job. Consequently, your students will be happier, and quite frankly, if they are happier, they will be more successful. After all, an unhappy teacher’s room has the smog of misery in it, and for a student, it hovers like a stench that affects their own victories. And while it benefits a school to keep its teachers happy, it is a teacher’s responsibility to demand those things that make this challenging job better than tolerable.

I think that finding those tricks or strategies to keep in your pocket is important in any career; but in education you need them even more so. Otherwise, the day-to-day duties of the job will eventually grind your enthusiasm to a halt and it won’t just be you who is affected, your students will be affected as well.

I will be expanding on each of these over time, but in a nutshell, here’s my TOP 10:

(...)
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Marketing Metacognition

heather — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:42:02 +0000

So I just got the January MindWare catalogue and I realize that here we have a toy catalogue that is solely for metacognitive purchases. So this got me thinking: how can schools market metacognition? I realized, of course, that until our standardized tests become a more critical-thinking assessment, however, is there a point in doing so?(...)
Read the rest of Marketing Metacognition (309 words)

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Asking for Student Opinions Isn’t Risky, It’s Rewarding

heather — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:47:49 +0000

I was reading this great article from Slate Magazine about the cheese that is Billy Joel. And I thought back to many a car trip singing his “Themes from an Italian Restaurant.” I also remembered just how many times I’d fast-forwarded through some of his more heavy-handed, political-themed songs set to rapid rhyme scheme.

I’ll even one-up Slate’s insolent trashing of the Piano Man. I’ll go so far as to say I’m not an Elton John fan.

Don’t freak. I’m allowed. Remember, this is my website.

But this got me thinking about opinions, criticism, persuasion, and choice, and their place in the classroom.

In a collaborative classroom, students are not only given choice, they are given the ability to disagree with grace, with each other, and even with (dare I say) the teacher.

I’m still getting crazy responses to my Breaking Dawn Book review. I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve deleted with X-rated words or threats. It’s not that I’m looking over my shoulder, but if the majority of these comments are from tweens, there’s clearly a lesson not being taught to these kids. How does one disagree appropriately? Yes, I slammed the book. But the theme of the post is to Discuss over Censor. They just couldn’t see it through our disagreement.

Students should be allowed to choose in a classroom. It’s a true form of differentiation. Choice could be given on reading texts, assessments, projects, partnerships, etc…But with choice, also comes opinion, hand-in-hand. And with opinion comes disagreement.

This shouldn’t be scary; it should be embraced. Choice is empowering for a student. But a teacher must teach how to disagree appropriately, how to criticize appropriately, and how to move on from there.

It is a new form of pre-teaching. There are skills involved in teaching Reaching a Consensus. There are skills involved in Criticism Etiquette. These are worthwhile – arguably more so than the skills involved in How to Bubble Accurately.

These are lessons that would not only be reflected in blog comments, but in how our students, as adults, would make choices, form opinions, and have disagreements in the world.

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Post tags: collaboration, commentary, critical thinking, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, How To, k-12, k12, life long learners, metacognition, technology, Title I, TLN, websites, Writers Project, writing

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Metacognitive Poetry: Writing About Thinking While Writing Lesson

heather — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:34:14 +0000

Here’s a great metacognitive lesson that integrates poetry. Or is it a poetry lesson that is metacognitive? (Shrug) I believe that good writing and great structure can be taught through mimicking great authors. Using this philosophy as my guide, my 8th graders mimicked the poetic style of Jay Leeming in “Man Writes Poem,” a piece first introduced to me at the UCI Writing Project this summer.(...)
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Second-Career Teachers…Aren’t we All?

heather — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:03:11 +0000

The Illinois News-Gazette recently reported an increase in second career teachers. But, really, aren’t we all second-career teachers? I mean, unless we bopped from high school to a BA to an education program and landed directly into the teaching field, surely we “were” something else in our lives before teaching…and surely this past civilian life contributed to who we are now in the classroom.(...)
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Post tags: alternative credetials, blog, differentiation, education policy, employment, k-12, k12, Language Arts, life long learners, middle school, second-career, writing

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The Excitement Graph: Plot and Word Choice

heather — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:04:08 +0000

Every year, I do this activity when teaching Narrative Plot. I’ve used it from 3rd grade to 12th grade. I learned a version of it first in 1993 at a UCLA Extension class on “Teaching Reading to Secondary Students” and I’ve adapted it from there. It’s called:

THE EXCITEMENT GRAPH(...)
Read the rest of The Excitement Graph: Plot and Word Choice (443 words)

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Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, assessments, blog, book review, classroom library, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, description, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, ELA, essay, fundraising, integration, k-12, k12, Language Arts, middle school, new teachers, peer teaching, professional development, tween, Writers Project

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The snail wins the race…with RSP

heather — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:11:59 +0000

Just a brief post of victory to share:

At the beginning of Sept 2007, I gave a pre-assessment to my class in order to learn their levels and begin the process of differentiation. I looked through the results and my gaze halted on one essay in particular. Thus began my fight to get help for a nice young man who was placed in my mainstream 7th Grade Language Arts class. This kid was sweet, respectful, earnest, and tried so hard with everything…until everything had its way with him. (...)
Read the rest of The snail wins the race…with RSP (376 words)

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Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, blog, btsa, Character Education, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, k-12, k12, middle school, new teachers, rsp, special ed, tween, writing

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Should a free education be unconditional?

heather — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:25:19 +0000

So you know when you get your group of kids on the first day, there are those who immediately set off your alarms? Well, that definitely happened to me on my first day.

I have a student who clearly needs help. His peers are weary of him already and his confrontational style seems not as intentional as inherent. The startling comments and “seething anger”, as his last year’s teacher put it only three weeks into the school year, seem uncontrollable. This same teacher recorded that he asked if her windows were bullet proof. I wasn’t, of course, given this information up front. I had to seek it out.

His first quickwrite of this year centered on cussing out his last teachers and cranking them nightly on the phone. His pride in his violent video games is apparent.

Like children with Asperger’s (of which he has not been tested to date), he seems unaware of cues or the goings on around him: calling out with inappropriate comments, walking in front of me while I talk to the class, handing me items while I’m in the middle of instruction. Annoying, yes, but harmless.

He also will not make eye contact (could be cultural, but this seems different than others of his ethnicity and nationality) and walks robotically, stiffly, without movement in his shoulders. Strangely enough, and I’m clearly not a diagnostician (though I play one on TV), the few students in my career who have had symptoms like this seem to also come with apparent sinus problems. His eyes are puffy with nasal issues, he is sniffy, and I can’t help but wonder if there is a connection.

So I approached the counselors who know me as a real student advocate and as a teacher with a somewhat effective antenna. I don’t send kids to the office. I handle my own discipline issues, which are few. So when I come in, they listen. The afternoon after the first day of school I walked in and said, “So, what’s up with X?” They pretty much flopped the file onto the desk, a file the size of our Language of Literature book.(...)
Read the rest of Should a free education be unconditional? (363 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, aspergers, blog, collaboration, Curriculum, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, education policy, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, Joanne Jacobs, k-12, k12, learning, metacognition, performance pay, special ed, teaching, technology, test, Title I

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Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a’comin…

heather — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:12:38 +0000

So, in a move reminiscent of a 12-year old girl caught up in the riot mentality of rumors, I believed the whisper I heard about not getting my Whiteboard for 2 months. But I tell you now: it was false, dear readers! Yes, not only have I heard that the boards have shipped, but the company even came after hours this week and brought me a borrowed board to use in the meantime. Props for service and courtesy.

So I write to you today as a contrite tweenteacher. Lesson learned. Don’t listen to the gossip in the teacher’s lounge.

So, in an attempt to bring this post around to some actual advice for all you educators out there, I want to reiterate that point: do not waste one minute of your time this year in a toxic teacher environment. This is different than a Toxic Teaching Environment which can be defined as anything that gets in the way of you doing your job: under-funding, lack of school wide discipline, fractured classrooms, etc…

No, I’m talking about a specific breed of pollution that is meant to choke the enthusiasm out of you: the Toxic Teacher Environment. (...)
Read the rest of Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a’comin… (419 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008, blog, carnival of education, Character Education, collaboration, computers, credential, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, digital immigrants, Ed Tech, ELA, employment, equity, game shows, interactive whiteboards, internet literacy, k-12, k12, middle school, new teachers, professional development, teaching, tenure, Title I, UCI, websites

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My new Interactive Whiteboard: Part I

heather — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:55:36 +0000

Is the tale of the recent surge of Interactive Whiteboards a grade-B horror flick or a Cinderella story? Are they the villain or the belle of the ball? They’ve begun creeping into trendsetting classrooms, taking over precious wall space and sending those unfortunate overhead projectors of said classrooms to basement warehouses to gather dust alongside carousel slide projectors and the purpled-mimeograph machines of yesteryear. Are they an inevitable given in tomorrow’s classroom or an expensive fad?

These questions and many more are explored in today’s The Opening Bell.(...)
Read the rest of My new Interactive Whiteboard: Part I (807 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, blog, carnival of education, critical thinking, CUE, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, digital immigrants, digital natives, Ed Tech, ELA, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, middle school, Title I, UCI, writing

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