My school is currently under construction.  Despite the fact that things are tight and we are a Title I district, our community voted to pass a bond that could update our school’s desperately inadequate facilities.  So we’re getting a new media center (although budget cuts have cut back our librarian’s position), a new field to share with the community recreational center,  and a new administration building at the front of the school.  And we are grateful.

But what little green exists on our campus is under threat, including our few trees. In fact, the biggest and oldest tree which can be seen from the front of our school, which kids hang out under waiting to be picked up, and under which students read, is smack dead in the center of the scheduled covered walkway. (I’m not sure why in Southern California, we need a covered walkway, but – shrug – I guess that’s what was decided.)

So I think we should try to save the tree. I know it sounds all tree-huggy, but schools need green. Right now there’s only one grassy strip on our campus and it seems to be where all the dogs in our city go to do their business.

This grassy strip leads up to the tree, and a huge indicator as to the plans to disrupt the grass and its tree is the fact that it hasn’t been watered in months, and the browning has begun. My classroom and three others happen to sit right next to this anemic strip of nature, and we used to complain that the industrial size grass trimmer seemed to always appear on testing days. But I swear, if we can save this patch, we won’t bitch about the distracting noise again.

So I started by just trying to get an answer as to when the tree and grass was scheduled to be cut for good. This is proving difficult. So far, no response from the administration nor the director of the construction on campus. Growl. Normally, I would be having students do this portion of research, but I want to know that when we return, there will be a tree still there to fight for.

Once I get that answer, it will give me a timeline for our project.  I can backplan due dates and students can goal-set appropriately.  We can begin preparing for a writing campaign, a publicity campaign, and oral speaking activities.  We can stage informational lunchtime classes and even create a blog, perhaps create a petition.  By the time the kids arrive, they will be the creators of the tree-saving movement, however, not I.

I’m starting with a local, applicable topic so that students can see the difference their efforts may make (hopefully). The immediacy may help them in their own learning. From there, later in the year, we’ll move into student choices of topics, the further development of polls, and the writing of an executive summary.

On a side note: it’s a pity that the test scores of one single setting can’t reflect the learning that will occur in training our students to be advocates for a cause.  Regardless of the cause, we want our students to be adults that can stand for something and who will put their abilities to use in society.  So far, no bubble test I know can capture the deep learning that can occur within a unit of PBL.

Anyway, I’ll give you an update, dear readers, as soon as school starts and the battle really begins!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, k12, middle school, project based learning, Title I

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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

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We all know there are many problems in education and not one bullet to solve any one of them.  We as teachers can’t do a lot about many of the factors that have huge influence on student success: parental involvement, health care, funding.  But there are a few steps we as educators can make in protecting our professional reputation, advancing student achievement, and making our day-to-day lives a little less challenging.(...)
Read the rest of 5 Things Teachers can do to Improve Teaching (996 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collaborate, Curriculum, Ed Tech, merit pay, middle school, performance pay, Title I, TLN, tween, writing project

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project

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There’s a really interesting discussion thread going on at the Interactive Whiteboard Revolution ning.  It all began with my post recapping Robert Marzano’s position on the influence of IWB technology when he presented at the CUE conference this year.  You can read the thread here.    

One of the most interesting arguments going on is in the importance of whether or not Marzano is sponsored by Promethean (he is) and whether or not this somehow corrupts his findings (it shouldn’t).  As Peter Kent points out, “Corporate sponsorship is common practice. The MIT Media Lab (created by Papet and highly reputable) and currently including Mitch Resnik of Scratch fame has over 60 corporate sponsors including the possibility to having an employee of a sponsor work in the Media Lab. There is also the opportunity for a sponsor to work closely with a principal investigator and a graduate student in a specific area.  My point is that corporate sponsorship of educational research is both common and necessary.”

I’ve written on this topic before when I’ve said that I think there is a future in education as a privately sponsored entity.  In my earlier post, “Walmart Presents: (insert some president’s name) Middle School,” I previously wrote, (...)
Read the rest of Marzano con’t & Corporate Sponsorship in Education (318 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessments, collaboration, Ed Tech, education, fundraising, interactive whiteboards, ning, TED, Title I, TLN, VLC

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

-Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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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But why is it that only the worst of the worst appears in the news, as if this level of inappropriateness was a common disease facing education today?

I was corresponding with Teacher Leader Network all-around-awesome-guy John Norton, and we stumbled on an interesting point which relates to this issue of highly publicized educational indecency.  And it kinda got me thinking.

Sure, I’m frustrated by the ease in which the news reports the horrible, inbred cousins of education.  Sure I tire of the publicity behind those YouTube worthy rants, those rare abuses in schools made seemingly frequent, as if they were a chronic problem along with the achievement gap and childhood obesity.

But I feel that we as teachers in the trenches have a duty to battle this poor publicity.

Teachers of yore were quite isolated, closing their door and teaching in their solitary rooms.  Some still do, but the job has changed.  Collaboration has become a key to our survival.  Teaching with transparency and an open-door policy has become necessity, evidence of our ability.  Some of why this is necessary is because test scores and observations have become the go-to way to evaluate a teacher (but that’s for another post).  Another reason is that our challenges and our horrors have become far more public than our glories.

Whose fault is that?  I blame us.(...)
Read the rest of A teacher’s duty? (593 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collaboration, Ed Tech, education, education policy, publicity, technology, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CUE, Curriculum, curriculum design, Ed Tech, education, middle school, podcasting, teaching, technology, Title I, Writers Project, writing

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OK, guys.  So I got it from the horse’s mouth at CUE.  According to the ISTE Director of Governmental Affairs, No Child Left Behind is not going away.  

In the weeks leading up to the election, the Obama administration talked the talk, proving that Educational Technology was on their radar, but if you’ve been listening, the silence on Ed Tech has since become deafening.  (...)
Read the rest of How to be an Ed Tech Advocate (515 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: achievement gap, blog, budget, CUE, Ed Tech, education policy, EETT, equity, ETAN, fundraising, internet literacy, k-12, k12, learning, lobbyist, middle school, NCLB, obama, online, school accountability, school funding, technology, Title I, tween, UCI, writing

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I believe a classroom library is the heartbeat of a teacher’s environment.  It is the window into their own personality, and it reflects the importance of literacy in the classroom.  I believe every teacher, no matter the subject taught, should have one.

 Access to books should be thought about with the same differentiated approach as any other lesson, assessment, or activity.  It seems to me that there are four kinds of library-learners:

1. THE BRASH BIBLIOPHILE:  These are students who are well versed in the language of book choice and seek out what they want, avidly asking questions or using learned or inherent strategies to find the book that will make them sigh into their bed with a flashlight in hand.  They will find their way to their local bookstore by any means necessary, and look through the stacks until their parents pull them away.  

(...)
Read the rest of The Importance of The Classroom Library (923 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessments, blog, book review, classroom library, classroom management, education, ELA, Golden Lines, How To, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, middle school, new teachers, school funding, teaching, textbooks, Title I, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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-Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessments, data, education policy, ELA, test prep, Title I, tween, UCI, Writers Project

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