A tip to help you be more effective with Adolescents

Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning ScienceDaily (Jul. 28, 2007) — Kids asked to physically gesture at math problems are nearly three times more likely than non-gesturers to remember what they've learned. In the journal Cognition, a University of Rochester scientist suggests it's possible to help children learn difficult concepts by providing gestures as an additional and potent avenue for taking in information. "We've known for a while that we use gestures to add information to a conversation even when we're not entirely clear how that information relates to what we're saying," says Susan Wagner Cook, lead author and postdoctoral fellow at the University. "We asked if the reverse could be true; if actively employing gestures when learning helps retain new information." It turned out to have a more dramatic effect than Cook expected. In her study, 90 percent of students who had learned algebraic concepts using gestures remembered them three weeks later. Only 33 percent of speech-only students who had learned the concept during instruction later retained the lesson. And perhaps most astonishing of all, 90 percent of students who had learned by gesture alone--no speech at all--recalled what they'd been taught. Cook used a variation on a classic gesturing experiment. When third graders approach a two-sided algebra equation, such as "9+3+6=__+6" on a blackboard, they will likely try to solve it in the simple way they have always approached math problems. They tend to think in terms of "the equal sign means put the answer here," rather than thinking that the equal sign divides the problem into two halves. As a result, children often completely ignore the final "+6." However, even when children discard that final integer, they will often point to it momentarily as they explain how they attacked the problem. Those children who gestured to the number, even though they may seem to ignore it, are demonstrating that they have a piece of information they can't reconcile. Previous work has shown that the children with that extra bit of disconnected knowledge are the ones ready to learn, which suggests that perhaps giving children extra information in their gesture could lead to their learning. Cook divided 84 third and fourth graders into three groups. One group expressed the concept verbally without being allowed to use gestures. The second group was allowed to use only gestures and no speech, and the third group employed both. Teachers gave all the children the same instruction, which used both speech and gesture. After three weeks, the children were given regular in-school math tests. Of those children who had learned to solve the problem correctly, only a third of the speech-only students remembered the principles involved, but that figure rose dramatically for the speech-and-gesture, and the gesture-only group, to 90-percent retention. "My intuition is that gestures enhance learning because they capitalize on our experience acting in the world," says Cook. "We have a lot of experience learning through interacting with our environment as we grow, and my guess is that gesturing taps into that need to experience." Cook plans to look into how gesturing could be implemented effectively in classrooms to make a noticeable improvement in children's learning. "Gesturing does have one clear benefit," Cook adds. "It's free." Adapted from materials provided by University of Rochester. Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats: APA MLA University of Rochester (2007, July 28). Hand Gestures Dramatically Improve Learning. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 29, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/07/070725105957.htm

How can we help students know what they do not know?

Below is an important article because many Adolescents and in particular the Special Ed students are over confident in their abilities. One does not want to devastate them and their self esteem but some how one wants to convey to them that there is a large amount of knowledge that they still need to learn to become self sufficient Adults after their years in school. Read below the article and let me know what you think would be ways that we could help students to understand their need for more knowledge but gaining a "true" accessment of their current abilities...testing does not do the job any more because that can be dismissed as a bad day or through some other type of rationalization! Let me know what you think...it is easier to help a Student now with obtaining knowledge than after graduation when they face the harsh reality that they are not ready to compete in the global job market. Middle School Students 'Extremely Overconfident' In Their Own Learning ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2007) — Given national mandates to ‘leave no child behind,’ grade-school students are expected to learn an enormous amount of course material in a limited amount of time. “Students have too much to learn, so it’s important they learn efficiently,” says Dr. John Dunlosky, Kent State professor of psychology and associate editor of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. Today, students are expected to understand and remember difficult concepts relevant to state achievement tests. However, a major challenge is the student’s ability to judge his own learning. “Students are extremely over confident about what they’re learning,” says Dunlosky. Dunlosky and his colleague, Dr. Katherine Rawson, Kent State assistant professor of psychology, study metacomprehension, or the ability to judge your own comprehension and learning of text materials. Their research primarily focuses on fifth, seventh and eighth graders as well as college-aged students, and how improving metacomprehension can, in turn, improve students’ self-regulated learning. One way to improve this issue is to self-test, says Rawson. After reading or studying information, wait for a short time; then try to recall or summarize the information from memory. Next, check the information recalled against the original source material. Adds Rawson: “Our research consistently shows that without checking, people often believe they’ve remembered something correctly when in fact they haven’t.” Currently, Dunlosky and Rawson are developing a “study buddy” that combines accurate monitoring with effective schedules of learning. When the guide is completed, they hope to provide it to schools across the state of Ohio. Dr. John Dunlosky, Kent State professor of psychology, and his colleague, Dr. Katherine Rawson, Kent State assistant professor of psychology contributed to this work. It was funded by the US Department of Education. Adapted from materials provided by Kent State University

After Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone ...now is the time to plunge ahead into that hard time to keep the student's attention because of the impending coming of Christmas! Because of that excitement of Christmas the following words have been used as vocabulary words:

1. November

2. December

3. Christmas

4. Present

5. Ornament

6. Snow

7. Carol

8. Give

9. Christmas Eve

10. Shepherds

11. Manger

12. Candles

13. Candy Cane

14. Reindeer

15. Sleigh

Please help your child to learn these words. You can have them to be copied. You discuss the meaning of the words. You can also teach your child how to sound them out focusing on the sounds of the letters as well as the division into syllables.

---------------------------------------------

Report: U.S. youth reading less than previous generation ASCD SmartBrief 11/26/2007 Young Americans spend an average of 10 minutes or less of their daily leisure time on reading, according to a new National Endowment for the Arts report, raising concerns about their academic performance, career prospects and civic engagement. Focusing on testable reading skills in classrooms does little to instill a love of books, according to Dana Gioia, the organization's chairman. Education Week (premium article access compliments of Edweek.org) (11/19) New York Times, The (11/19)

________________________________________________

Wednesday, August 01, 2007 Readers make better workers Cutbacks To The Arts May Be Depriving Us Of The Best, Brightest, Most Committed And Hardest-Working Diane Stafford, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Published: Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Getty Images File PhotoAsk interviewees if they read for pleasure. The question avoids discrimination rules, but reveals much. Do you read for pleasure? There: A free job interview question for employers who say they can't find good help. Or for managers who say too many questions they want to ask applicants are prohibited by anti-discrimination rules. Ask job hunters if they have a library card. Ask what book they're reading now. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, inspired that idea when he spoke to Kansas City-area business and philanthropy leaders last week in Kansas City, Mo. People who read, Mr. Gioia said, are more likely to be patrons of the arts and other community efforts. They are more likely to volunteer. They are more likely to know things beyond their specialized career field. And they are more likely to have the knowledge and the communication skills needed in most workplaces. At an event organized by the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City and Commerce Bank, Mr. Gioia told a stark truth: "Thirty-two percent of kids drop out of high school in the United States. As business leaders, you inherit that. People come to you for jobs who don't have a basic level of skills." The United States, he said, as is true with other Western nations, is suffering from decades of budget cuts by local school districts, which decimated arts education in the high schools. In some communities, only the children of wealthy parents who can afford private lessons are being exposed to music and other fine arts, he said. That could mean fewer artists, fewer musicians, fewer authors will discover their creative muses. But equally important is that "we are not producing the next generation of audiences and arts patrons." Nor the next generation of good workers. Nor the next generation of good citizens in a democracy. So ask those job applicants if they read. "The key is reading for pleasure," Mr. Gioia said. "A person who reads is more likely to engage in every form of civic behaviour we can measure." Reading exposes people to larger worlds than their own. It sparks imagination. "It allows people to feel what it's like to live someone else's life," Mr. Gioia said. "It creates compassion and understanding that we're all in this together." That's reason enough to aim for a workplace full of readers. There's more. "Reading requires focused, linear attention -- the ability not to be distracted," he said. "Reading teaches information, syntax, vocabulary. ... It nourishes curiosity and rewards intellect." Employer surveys often rank lack of communication skills, written and oral, as the biggest workforce problem. They say their employees can't follow directions, can't write a memo, can't express themselves well. U.S. businesses spend from US$2-billion to US$5-billion a year on remedial training in the three Rs to bring workers up to skill levels they need, Mr. Gioia said. As head of the government agency, Mr. Gioia is pushing to fund arts education "town by town across the country." "Without arts and patrons, we won't have thriving education centres or communities. We won't have urban centres people want to move to," he warned. Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

An Opportunity to Celebrate

Last week we had the sad time of saying good bye to one of our students but the exciting time of knowing as he left that he had made great progress! We celebrated with a pizza party that was a suprise! Some of the pictures from the festivities are above...

Technology Opportunities....

Technology Opportunities....

I like to dream, but I like to make things happen." --Heidi Klum,supermodel and TV producer/host

Production begins for schoolkid laptops By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology WriterWed Nov 7, 10:55 AM ET The One Laptop Per Child Program, which hopes to spread sub-$200 computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, has reached a milestone with the start of mass production. The nonprofit spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said assembly lines for its "XO" laptops were fired up Tuesday at a Chinese factory run by manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc. That means children should begin getting the green-and-white computers this month. One Laptop Per Child did not specify how many computers will be made or how many orders it has received from international buyers. The program's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, said in September that Quanta would build about 250,000 XOs this year, ramping to 1 million a month in 2008. Negroponte originally expected mass production of several million XOs to have begun by now. But he scaled back that goal after encountering reluctance from potential buyers. The computers were dreamed up as $100 laptops but for now cost $188, and buyers are expected to let children keep the computers and tinker with them at home. The initial recipients will be children in Uruguay, Peru and Mongolia. Also, beginning Monday, people in North America will be able to buy one for themselves and donate the other to a child overseas through http://www.laptopgiving.org. Even with mass production beginning later than expected, One Laptop Per Child can claim success on several fronts. The small yet rugged XOs require low power and can be recharged by hand, have a screen that can be read in full sunlight and boast a user interface designed specially for children. And the impending emergence of the XOs awakened other companies to the potential of a low-cost educational market, greatly expanding the choices that international buyers now have. Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Help students look at their talents and abilities...

Most have problems thinking about a job...many can not decide the famous question of ,"What do I want to do now?" Many students whether they be ones that are part of Special Needs programs or they are from the top ten in the Graduating class facillate between ideas of where they will go with their lives after the time that they walk the halls of the school is over. Below is a list of questions that is great to consider that was written by LifeWay Christian Bookstore for their weekly career Ezine.

Self Assessment? "What does this have to do with my career?"Have you ever wondered what "Self Assessment" really means? Maybe you're saying, "Are you asking me to take a look at myself – and what do I see?" Or, "Why do I need to do a self assessment for my career!" A self assessment is:• Gathering of information about yourself to help in making career decisions.• Identifying important things about yourself such as your skills and abilities, interests, work attitudes and values, personality and work characteristics.A good self assessment about "You" should be the starting point in career planning. What's the purpose of self assessments? Take a look at the list below.• Increase self-awareness and confidence. • Help identify your strengths, weaknesses and preferences.• To increase your competitive edge above others. • To use the information about yourself to help explore and compare career options you have researched.• To help develop career goals and the steps to achieve these goals to ensure personal career satisfaction.Some find it very difficult to do their own self assessments. They may feel they are bragging about themselves or some can even be overly critical or negative. Maybe you would feel comfortable asking a coworker, friend or a family member to help you. Listed below are a few suggestions to help you get started in identifying important facts about yourself. Skills and Abilities• What are you good at doing? • What are your weaknesses? • What special talents do you have? Interests• Examples: writing, research, problem solving, helping others.• What would you prefer not to do?• What energizes you and gives you job satisfaction?Work Attitudes and Values • What job-related tasks are important to you? (Examples are: problem solving, variety, challenging, money, flexibility, promotion, job security.)• What people-related things are important to you? ( Helping and supporting others, working alone, honesty, teamwork.)Personality and Work Characteristics• Do you interact well with others?• How do you approach certain tasks? Do you hit the road running, procrastinate, or prioritize your work?• Are you assertive, impulsive, show patience or tolerance, self disciplined, confident, persuasive, perfectionist?Take time to do your self assessment when planning your career. Remember, the more you know about yourself the better you will be able to promote yourself to a potential employer. Take time to identify your strengths, weaknesses, accomplishments and achievements, and you'll be surprised how your self assessment will help you in making good career choices.

Stepping out for opportunities

Let’s make a dent in the universe.” — Steve Jobs “Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” — Frederick Wilcox “Do you want to be safe and good, or do you want to take a chance and be great?” — Jimmy JohnsonDallas Cowboys Coach “To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” — Pierre Corneille “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” — T.S. Eliot

Opportunities are never easy...

We are always 18 months away from failure." --Bill Gates,Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist

Fire-starting boy a "good kid"

Neighbor: Fire-starting boy a 'good kid' By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press WriterThu Nov 1, 11:36 PM ET When arson investigators went looking for the person who set a blaze that scorched 60 square miles and destroyed 21 homes, Linda Conner says she knew right where to send them. Minutes after the fire broke out, Conner said, she had raced up a hill toward the source of the flames. At the top, she saw a stunned-looking 10-year-old boy and his parents frantically trying to beat the flames down with towels. "There's no reason to talk to other people," Conner, a horse trainer at the ranch where the fire started, recalled telling arson investigators. "You need to go straight up the road and talk to that boy." The 10-year-old quickly admitted he had been playing with matches. On Thursday, as authorities considered whether to file criminal charges, neighbors gave conflicting accounts of the boy's behavior. Denise Tomey, who runs the Carousel Ranch where the boy lived in a small trailer with his family, described him as a quiet child who often played outside with his brother and the family's small white and tan dog, Spike. "From what I know, he's a good kid," said Tomey, executive director of the ranch, which provides riding lessons to developmentally disabled children. The boy's father tends horses there and the boy attends a nearby school. "He's a child and I certainly believe that he had no malice, and I absolutely believe it was accidental," Tomey said. Some neighbors, though, called the 10-year-old a troublesome child. Linny Martin, who lives across the road, said she often caught him throwing rocks at her horses. When she yelled at him to stop, she said, he would run up the hill to his family's trailer. "He's got a lot of problems," Martin said. The boy's name is being withheld. Legal experts say arson charges against him are unlikely, given that he may have been too young to understand how much damage his match-play could cause. The fire he admitted starting was one of more than 15 that roared across a wide swath of Southern California last week, blackening 809 square miles from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border and destroying more than 2,000 homes. Causes have ranged from arson to downed power lines to sparks set off by construction work. The Santa Clarita fire, which started Oct. 21, was traced to an area just outside the boy's hilltop trailer home. Neither the home nor the ranch was damaged. The boy attended a nearby school. Tomey said she never saw him bring classmates home or play with any of the children on the ranch. Authorities originally gave his age as 12, but a Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman said Thursday that was an error. Prosecutors said they would review evidence submitted by investigators before deciding whether to bring charges. In the meantime, the boy and his mother have left the ranch, Tomey said. "Obviously I feel terrible for the people who are affected by the fire, and I know the child felt terrible about it," Tomey said. The fire is believed to have started about 50 yards behind the family's trailer, where a vast triangle of blackened brush dips into a shallow canyon before disappearing over a ridge. Wilted cacti and charred, brittle bushes litter the landscape behind the white mobile home, where Tomey said the family lived for less than a year. It is fronted by potted plants, and a vegetable garden around the back is surrounded by a white picket fence. The blaze was reported by an employee who called 911, Tomey said. Some legal experts say serious criminal charges are unlikely. To win an arson conviction, prosecutors would have to prove the boy intended to cause harm, which would be difficult given that they seem to have accepted his explanation that the fire was an accident, said Cyn Yamashiro, who directs Loyola Law School's Center for Juvenile Law and Policy. The prosecutor's office was "not sure whether they'll bring any charges, given that it was an accidental fire," Los Angeles County fire Capt. Michael Brown said Wednesday. In a news conference Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he did not think the child meant any harm. The boy could be incarcerated for three years if found guilty of a lesser charge of unlawfully starting a fire. For that count, prosecutors would have to prove only that he understood the risks of his actions, but Yamashiro said winning a conviction on even that charge could be difficult. "They'd have to prove that at 10 years old he really appreciated what the risk of playing with matches would have been," Yamashiro said. "It's difficult to prosecute him under that theory." If the boy is convicted, state law requires that the court seek monetary damages as restitution for the millions of dollars lost by victims and spent on firefighting, Yamashiro said. His parents, however, wouldn't face criminal charges. Carousel Ranch sits on a canyon road that winds between brush-covered hillsides studded sparsely with homes, many of them one-story clapboard houses with abandoned cars and weathered swingsets out front. Some residents still aren't sure how to react to news that a 10-year-old playing with matches devastated the area. "What do you do? It was a kid," said Peter Kaulbach, 49, who lost his home on his family's Santa Clarita pumpkin farm. "It's almost like I don't have time to think about that issue right now." ___ Associated Press writer Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Opportunities through Adversity

http://www.claynews.net/

Below is an article from the Clay News

Commentary- Adversity Written by Richard Reynolds- CCHS teacher One Step Forward Adversity has become a buzz word in the Sports world today. Listen to any broadcaster, sports talk show or coach for any length of time and eventually you will hear how the word "adversity." A few years ago when Kevin Winslow was playing for the University of Miami and used the analogy of the football game being like "going to war" he was ridiculed by individuals in the media from every segment of the country from coast to coast. Yet we hear how a team learned about adversity by coming back from being two touchdowns down in the forth quarter. When the Boston Red Sox were down and trailing the Cleveland Indians recently many of the talk shows mentioned that they overcame "adversity" and therefore learned character which gives them an advantage in the World Series. Listen to ESPN, CBS, FOX or local radio talk show host and you will hear this word being used in relationship to something happening during a game. Cries should cry out from shore to shore that this is not adversity. This is a perversion of the word. Adversity is not starting out the season losing or not running for a hundred yards in a game with the San Diego Chargers, but it is waking up and being evacuated from your home because of a wild fire that is out of control. Real adversity is the Tight End recently injured for the Buffalo Bills that is dealing with the possibility of not being able to ever walk again after an injury during a recent game. Adversity is not Kurt Schilling dealing with a bloody sock in a World Series or any other numerous Sports events that are now related to the word even to the point that is becoming synonymous with the word! Adversity is known by the woman and her family that is in the process of fighting breast cancer. Adversity is known by the family that is learning first hand this year what the word "downsize" means because after many years of productive service to a company now a steady paycheck has become a distant memory. Adversity is the mother attempting to raise a family when the father has decided that he really only wanted to donate a chromosome and now does not want to do the rest that goes along with what it takes to go from fathering to being a "dad". Adversity is known by the Parents sitting in Children’s Hospital knowing that no matter how much they would like to help their child overcome their sickness that they are absolutely helpless and all they can do is to stand by watching and praying. As the Baseball season comes to an end with the World Series and Football is beginning to get to the series time of the BCS, high school play offs and the professional teams are beginning to say that every game is critical realize that adversity when correctly used is so much more than a sporting event. During this time of the year is when we turn to think of the holidays and we should think of those who are truly experiencing the harshness of adversity of life every day. Then get your class at school, your civic organization, your church or as an individual to becoming involved during this holiday season in helping making someone’s adversity that they are experiencing being just a little bit less. Help make the day of a widow…become a Big Brother/Big Sister…give a helping hand to someone out of work…being willing to help a class at a local school even though you do not have a child or all your children are grown…in some way or another dedicate yourself to opening your eyes to noticing true cases of adversity and becoming a person that is willing to do something about the adversity that people in our community are experiencing. Even though we have a great community, there are always people that are experiencing adversity. If Auburn or Alabama was down two touchdowns any Saturday, we would want them to overcome adversity and win. We should be that passionate about helping the members of our community this Holiday season and around the year in overcoming the true adversity of life.

Enthusiasm?

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge,English poet, critic and philosopher

Jump Start.org Tips

How much time is appropriate to play computer games even if they are educational? Experts agree that young children should benefit from a variety of experiences such as physical activity and imaginative play. Computer games, video games and television can all be fun and educational for young children, but should be used wisely so they don't take too much time away from other important activities. All of these activities are more meaningful for children if there is sharing and discussion involved. Although computer games can be played independently, parental involvement makes learning more powerful; imagination and play more fun.As a guideline, children can use the computer to play and learn twice a week at 20 to 30 minutes each session. Of course, when a computer game is first introduced, children may want to play more. They can benefit from the learning and imaginative game play when they play games with friends and family!

Jump Start.org Tips

What is the best way to help a good reader master the confusion they have with b's and d's? Here are some suggestions that approach the challenge of differentiating b from d in different ways: Practice the difference between the letters in a physical game. Let your child practice these letters by writing with their finger tips on different surfaces. Cover a counter top with whipped cream or chocolate pudding. Demonstrate the letters and let the child practice to their hearts content. Give your child a visual cue for each letter. The b can be drawn as a bat with a ball next to it. The d can be drawn as a dog with a tail. This visual will help your child to remember the shape of each letter and be connected to a picture that uses its sound. Play with sounds and hear the differences between the two letters. We recommend using the Letter Book inside My Cabin in JumpStart World. Your child can turn to any letter page and experience the letters by listening to the letter sounds, hearing the sounds in alliterative songs, recording the sounds and songs with their own voices, and finally decorating a letter page with stickers of words that all start with that beginning sound. Make a letter collage by finding pictures of words that start with the sound b or d. Draw the shape of the letter on a large sheet of paper. Then help your child find as many examples of words beginning with the sound as possible and paste them onto the letter collage. Hang the picture on the wall as a reward and a reminder. These ideas work for learning all letters and sounds, and especially the letters that look alike!

Parenting Tips that are chances for learning

Top Parent Tips Weighty IssuesThe next time you bring home groceries, help your child compare the weights of different items. For example, have your child hold a can of baked beans in one hand and a box of taco shells in the other. Which is heavier? Which is lighter? Is the heavier item always the larger item? Topsy-TurvyDraw these images on squares of paper: E, L, 3, J, >, K, /, P. Repeat so that there are two of each. Let your child put the images in a sack, shake the sack, and then remove the images. Can your child find the image pairs and rotate them so that they look exactly the same? (To simplify the activity, use only a few images at a time.) Name a NumberAsk your child to name a number between 1 and 6. Give your child that number of pennies. Repeat the activity, but this time, give your child nickels. Can your child count out all the pennies and nickels and tell you the total value? Triple TossMake a score sheet by writing the numbers 3 through 18 down the side of a sheet of paper. Then take turns with your child tossing three dice and adding. Initial the answer on the score sheet (unless it has already been initialed). Who can initial the most answers? Guess the CategoryName different items of clothing, continuing until your child can guess the category. Repeat the activity, but this time name items from a different category: furniture, fruits, vegetables, animals, rooms, plants, or things that use electricity.

What you can do for your student this week!

I am out Monday....but the show must still go on! The students will be exposed for the first time to new words that have to do with what they might see on a job application. Yes, these are vocabulary words that we will use in many different ways this week! Practice this week getting your child to know these words and the basic information that goes along with the information! It is a must for their success in the world outside of the home and the school! Here are some of the words~

1. Social Security
2. Birth Date
3. Address
4. First, Last and Middle Name
5. School
6. Phone
7. Reference
8. Training
9. Experience
10. Email
11. Hours Available
12. Hobbies
13. Skills
14. Who to call in case of an emergency

Our job is to not only give knowledge and help with the obtaining of knowledge but to help the students to be able to have the best opportunity possible to be a productive citizen after their school days...to do this we can not just teach words, and concepts that are "nice to know" but we strive to teach things that can be used in daily life situations! With your help that can become a reality...by ourself we can not accomplish all that needs to be taught but as a team we can see the needs of each student met!

Helping Students Learn at Home and at School

In This Class, Math Comes With Music By Michael Alison ChandlerWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, October 23, 2007; B01 The red plastic ON AIR sign is always lit in Eric Chandler's second-grade class, where a simple question about subtraction could elicit a rock performance styled after the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You say the bigger number and count backwards/Or say the smaller number, then count forwards/Just say one, count the other on your finger/Where you stop's the answer, now let's sing . . . Take it away, take it away, take it away now. The Loudoun County teacher writes his own songs and also adapts the lyrics of popular tunes. Some musicians find inspiration in love or nature, but Chandler finds it in the Virginia Standards of Learning. The right combination of chords and rhythm, he says, makes the state's curriculum more fun and more memorable. "A song, if it's catchy enough, gets stuck in your head," Chandler said. So he embeds lessons in verses that kids might hum one day when sitting for a test. For years, researchers have studied whether music education raises IQ points, test scores, spatial sense or math and verbal skills. Definitive results are scarce, but experts agree that music sparks the memory. "Just think of the alphabet song," said Ellen Winner, a Boston College psychology professor who studies how music education affects learning. As formal music instruction is getting squeezed in many schools to make room for math, reading and testing, more teachers are looking for new ways to add melody or syncopation to the daily classroom diet of worksheets and more worksheets. In the past three years, nearly 200 artists have contributed to a Michigan-based Web site, http://songsforteaching.com/, that offers music for core subjects, foreign languages, special education and classroom management. Other Web sites specialize in math or science songs. A national Science Songwriters' Association sells independently produced albums, including some with Washington-area connections. Most educational songwriters sell online or at teaching conferences, having found it hard to get their songs on shelves in music stores. The Chromatics, an a cappella group of mostly research scientists based in Greenbelt, has sold nearly 15,000 copies of its educational astronomy albums in those ways. "We wanted to be the 'Schoolhouse Rock!' of astronomy," said singer Padi Boyd, saying she remembers many of the grammar- and history-based jingles from the educational films that aired between cartoons in the 1970s and '80s. Boyd's group used national science curriculum standards to write songs about the sun, planets and sound waves. Chandler recently finished an album of songs about spelling, including "Short Vowel Rock." His greatest math hits include "Fact Family," set to the tune of "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge, and his own "Addend Plus Addend." After a decade teaching first grade, Chandler moved to second grade this year at Mountain View Elementary School in Purcellville, providing another set of grade-level state standards to dive into. Eventually he wants to cut an album for each elementary grade and sell them statewide. Chandler, 33, embraced musical pedagogy after learning about a teaching method called Quantum Learning, which encourages using music to keep students engaged and focused. Now Chandler is more likely to reach for his acoustic guitar than a dry-erase marker when explaining something complex. He even starts off the day with song. One recent morning, students were quietly reading "The Ralph Mouse Collection" and "Froggy Goes to School" when the first beats of C+C Music Factory's "Everybody Dance Now" thumped from a boombox. Josh Smith pumped his fists in the air, and Matthew Hudler struck a pose. Chandler, and then his students, started clapping in time. With one final big clap, the room went quiet. First lesson? Geography. Chandler strapped on his guitar. I live in Purcellville/I live in Loudoun County/I live in Virginia/I live in the United States of America/I live in North America/I live on Planet Earth/I live in the Solar System/I live inside of the Milky Way/How can anyone live in all these places?/Sometimes it is hard to understand. They sang another song called "Objects Move" for a science lesson. They also sang along in a rousing, Johnny Cash-like version of "That Shiny Nickel," with a count-by-fives chorus. Chandler finished with nimble riffs on the guitar, moving his fingers fret by fret until the children applauded. Sophia Sgarrella, with two long braids, called out from her desk, "You're going to break your pick someday." "Thank you, thank you very much," he said, Elvis-like at the mike. Chandler said his songwriting has evolved. He called his early attempts too singsong. "Kids don't go around singing nursery rhymes," he said. "They are into popular music. First- and second-graders, they listen to the radio." Now his subtraction rocks. For more edge, he obtained a grant to purchase his own portable studio, including a microphone, electric drum set and recording equipment. He collaborated with a technology teacher at his school to make slide shows or music videos of his songs, many of which have been posted on the school system's server for other teachers to use. Special requests have started coming from colleagues. Chandler wrote a fourth-grade song about Virginia's Native American tribes and a rap about Virginia "Document Dudes," also known as the Founding Fathers, who penned such works as the Constitution. Though his customer base is growing, he already has adoring fans, and possibly future musicians, in his class. Chandler said that after winter break each year, a handful of students come in with new guitars and want to learn the class tunes. Others are happy just to sing along. "There's only one teacher in the whole school who plays guitar," Sophia bragged after a morning of musical lessons. "And I'm looking at him." © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Providing New Opportunities Requires New Ways of Thinking

The rules of cycling also apply to life. Take care of yourself. Set goals. Learn from the experts. Share your wisdom. Be prepared." --Karen Bliss Livingston,Olympic cyclist

Published Online: October 26, 2007 Commentary Shift Happens Four crazy ideas that might burst the modern education paradigm. By Mark Weston Evidence suggests that our modern education paradigm, which does a terrific job of educating some students to high levels of learning, may be incapable of educating all students to equally high levels. Moreover, its inability to silence critics, support normal practice, and educate all the students persists despite efforts to the contrary. Have we reached a point where a new insight or fresh perspective might burst the old paradigm? Sound crazy? Consider three such insights from the past that contributed to much broader changes in the world. One insight, Benjamin Franklin’s idea for an American census, revealed that a few thousand British soldiers could not keep millions of colonists in line. It changed the way colonists saw their relationship with Britain and fomented a revolution. Another, Gandhi’s admonition that the peoples of India be “the change you wish to see in the world,” led to an unprecedented, nonviolent shift of power. In a third instance, Einstein’s insights into Newtonian physics demonstrated that space-time is one dimension, not two, which led to a range of new ideas, theories, and questions. In each case, a fresh perspective fueled a paradigm shift. Are there insights whose time may have arrived that would cause us to quit propping up the existing educational paradigm—with more money, more people, more everything—in favor of an alternative? Here are four present-day educational issues, each with a possibly paradigm-bursting twist. Increasing high-school-completion rates has been a goal of nearly every effort to improve education of the past three decades. What would happen if every child who is entitled to attend school, but not currently enrolled—about 30 percent of the school-age population—returned to school? Could the existing facilities accommodate the surge in students? Would instructors have the capacity to meet these students’ educational needs? Could the safety-net programs prevent them from falling through the cracks again? Would “adequate yearly progress” be attainable with so many more students attending school? Could class-size requirements be met? While all students may know that they have the right to attend school, few know that by simply doing so they might change the education system forever. If feedback from all stakeholders drove educational decisions, the nature of the conversation would certainly change, quite possibly for the better. When parents are engaged in their children’s schooling, students do better. Not surprisingly, getting parents engaged has been another widely embraced goal. With most homes and classrooms connected to the Internet, one form of engagement that warrants a deeper look is the use of e-mail. Infrequent—weekly, monthly, quarterly—now characterizes the e-mail exchanges between educators and parents. What would happen if every teacher and parent exchanged one e-mail per day, perhaps about a lesson that day and one for the next? With nearly $7 billion spent annually for educational technology, this is not an outlandish expectation. What would be outlandish is this once-a-day exchange causing havoc to the technological infrastructure of most schools. How confident are we that the system could handle the load? Would teachers have time to manage the e-mails? And if neither teachers nor infrastructure can handle an extra set of e-mails each day, then what makes us think more complex practices would be possible? In short, while engaging parents is the right thing to do, it is not clear that the current education system could withstand the consequences of that actually happening. Most everyone agrees that feedback about performance is an essential ingredient for improving instructional practice, student achievement, and management of limited resources. Not surprisingly, nowadays data-driven decisionmaking is in vogue. What would happen if we brought the feedback loop used in the current paradigm—instructors and administrators evaluating students via formal assessments, portfolios, quizzes, and tests and parents voting on the school board’s makeup—full circle? What if, that is, students provided feedback about the performance of their instructors, instructors about administrators, instructors about parents, and parents about instructors and administrators. Would student learning increase? Would instruction improve? Would parent engagement increase? If feedback from all stakeholders drove educational decisions, the nature of the conversation would certainly change, quite possibly for the better. School buildings throughout America—particularly those in urban areas—are in a state of decay. What would happen if, instead of simply viewing schooling as a place where students go to learn, with buildings to be repaired or replaced, we viewed school as a process through which students gained skills and acquired knowledge? Would giving computing devices to students spark the shift from place to process? Would doing so reduce the need for computer labs and classrooms? Would focusing on process lead to a learning day that produced greater achievement gains than a school day? Crazy ideas? Indeed. The insights of Franklin, Gandhi, and Einstein in their eras were undoubtedly viewed as equally crazy, and look what changes they wrought. So while the insights posited here raise the possibility that getting what we want—higher school-completion rates, engaged parents, data-driven decisions, and school building replacements—could lead to chaos, they also might set the stage for a paradigm shift that results in all children getting the education they deserve. Mark Weston, an education reformer and researcher living in Atlanta, is investigating the shifting educational paradigm in America. He can be reached at mkweston@comcast.net. Vol. 27 from Education Week

Bowling Opportunities from today!

This class is about providing opportunities! Today we took the class to Trussville to the newest bowling alley in the area called "Lightening Strikes". Personnel Manager Bill Hyde made us extremely comfortable and went out of his way along with his staff to make sure we had a great time! The students learned about bowling but also about working together, how to have fun and how to get along with each other even though they are in competition! What can you do to provide an opportunity for someone this week?