I’m going to walk you through what happens in a testing room to help demystify your child’s test taking experience.  

First off, I’m told to take down anything from my walls that might help kids out.  That means they are now emerged in a neutral testing environment.  No Word Walls, no prompts, no student work.  The room is either stripped to the bare walls or paper is stapled up over everything.  This is so every school and every class has the same disadvantages.  It’s also very depressing.

OK, so the day of the test, I walk down to the farthest place on the other side of the world and pick up a box that has all my testing materials in it, signing away my firstborn should I lose a pencil.  (...)
Read the rest of Dear Parents: What happens in the testing room? (1,010 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ELA, funding, middle school, testing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m the new English Department Chair for my middle school, and I’ve been set to lead a group of teachers who are very gifted, very diverse in their teaching styles, and very outspoken. (...)
Read the rest of Advice for a Future Department Head (992 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: budget, Curriculum, department head, ELA, funding, middle school, Title I

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

One the one hand, we are to help our students function and advance in their use of technology. On the other hand, our budget to do so is constantly cut and slashed in a bloody display of shortsightedness.

I have blogged before that if you have any involvement in technology in the school, or even if you just see the writing on the wall, that using technology as a tool is the future for our students, then we all find ourselves in a special interest group.

Members of our group cross political boundaries. The use of technology and providing the tools to learn it are of the utmost importance to our country’s future. But once again, the funding to teach these vital skills is being threatened.

As a member of the national Ed Tech Action Network, I receive emails when key bills are about to be passed so that my voice can be heard. I hope that you too will lend your voice to this battle.

ETAN says,

Last week, the House of Representatives’ Appropriations subcommittee approved a 63 percent cut in the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) Program. If this cut becomes law, it will leave many school districts without funding for hardware, software and technology professional development, placing our students at a distinct skills and knowledge disadvantage when they enter the 21st century job market.

In order to get your opinion out there, please click on the link below (or cut and past the URL into your address bar). ETAN makes it all easy to get your stance out there. You can sign and send the existing letter or change it up in your own words. The representatives rarely read the letters, but they do count the number that they receive. And that determines their vote. So if we send enough letters, they will represent us.

http://capwiz.com/edtech/issues/alert/?alertid=13735446

Help education and technology’s role in it. Help our students to achieve in the 21st Century. Write your representative today.

ETAN’s made it easy.

Thanks,

Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: budget, Ed Tech, education, EETT, ETAN, funding

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh