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      The President’s Town Hall Meeting could have been entitled” No Teacher Left Behind”

One of the advantages, or disadvantages that I have is that I live in Washington DC. That means that I get to go to the hill and hear the reports , ideas, and the philosophy that the groups say that the president believes in.

I have just attended an online Town Hall Meeting at White House.gov. You may want to review this presentation and or listen to the President , in his own words, tell what his perspective is on education in the nation. I have heard the pleas from Compete.org, The Convocation on the Gathering Storm, the Innovation Proclamation, and the MIT PiTAC groups. It was like going to the hill with the cheerleaders for change in education. But today, the President directly talked about teachers, early childhood education, charter schools with evaluation, and innovation.

What was so interesting to me was that he talked directly about the support that is needed for teachers. Unlike Michelle Rhee, he did not play the blame game. He acknowledged that he had the best of education but that education is delivered unevenly in the US.  What he said was that teachers need professional development and then, then we can talk about measurement and merit pay, but he must have been reading the local papers Washington DC papers. How refreshing to see that he gets it.. Here in Washington there is a school where students are throwing books at teachers when they turn their backs its not about technology its about classroom management and attitudes.

The president said that not only do teachers need to know curriculum, but also that they need to know how to manage the classroom.

STEM

I attended a STEM initiative yesterday that was presented by the National Center for Technological Literacy, NSTA, NCTM and was a briefing of the House STEM Education Caucus. 

I attended two STEM workshops yesterday. One was excellent the various groups talked about science, math technology and engineering and gave references, web sites, and resources and the group in the meeting, which was a STEM advocacy meeting were encouraged to network. There were plentiful materials for all and even a handout of all of the powerpoints. This was organized by Sharon Robinson and the STEM Alliance.The House STEM Education Caucus

Innovative STEM Teacher Preparation Programs

It was worth getting up to go to.

Education of Science Teachers in Pre-Service

For college teachers there was a power point on Science Teacher Education with the challenges being cited as content knowledge,and content courses in program. Thee was mention of the pressures from NCLB and other mandates. They actually mentioned that in many states science in the elementary school had become a non entity because it has not been tested and relegated to 20 minutes a week, if taught at all. There was discussion of the disconnect between the “Digital Natives: and the ” Digital Immigrants” but the  group acknowledged that there were some that were digitally disconnected and therefor not in either category.

Discussion revolved around a holistic approach to educating pre-service teachers.

This was Jon Pederson – Association for Science Teacher Education

Often people teach teachers how to use the technology without a reference as to how that use of technology changes the classroom and the ways in which we must work.

Mathematics Teacher Preparation

Dr. Francis Fennell

He discussed teacher education programs and the ideas of the mathematical and pedagogical content knowledge needed for teaching math. From the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2009 he said that evidence shows that a substantial part of the variability of student achievement gains is due to the teacher’s ability and knowledge of math.

He discussed the critical shortage in most states of High School and Middle School teachers. He talked about the various pathways into teaching and said that we must improve teacher mentoring, teacher professional development and teacher retention. He was clear that the National Math Panel supported Elementary math specialists Had a thought and prediction that there be a mathematics  specialist at every level.

The only disconcerting thing for me , was that he did not seem to know what computational math is and why it should be included in his road map to math excellence.

There was handed out a paper from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

It stated that every student has the right to be taught mathematics by a highly qualified teacher -a teacher who knows mathematics well and who can guide students’ understanding and learning. A highly qualified teacher understands how students learn mathematics, employes a wide range of teaching strategies, and is committed to lifelong professional development. 

An interesting variation and new discussion  was of the  Atlas Program, at Advancing the Technological Literacy and Skills of Elementary Educators, the Museum of Science, Boston.

http://www.mos.org/ere/atlas

They shared a rationale for Engineering Technology in Elementary Grades. demonstrated the needs, goals and outcomes and a plan for distribution of this program to community colleges and four years institutions. This program and its highlights are available on the web.

The difference between what the President says and how others SAY he says things is huge….

Then I went to the NEA building to the 21st Century STEM iniitative presentation. Chris Dede initiated the talk in maybe 92 to my knowledge and we started talking about the 21st Century Initiatives. I actually worked for the first initiative doing outreach to teachers after I finished my work on the NIIAC, and did initial sharing of resources , ideas, and philosophy on the use of technology in the US. There were many players who had ideas at that time who were collaborating with the 21st Century Initiative. Sadly, yesterday the group is stll wedded to Margaret Spelling and the original NCLB talk. There was no mention at all of science, geography, and the innovation part of the STEM that we have come to know about from Compete.org, The innovation seemed to come from INTEL, and there was a little mention of UDL, but Ken Kay never mentioned science, engineering and or technology as a complete subject. Maybe they need to retool and re-educate themselves on the new direction in which the president is going. Instead they wanted states to sign up for more standards. Maybe Ken Kay had not heard the Secretary of Education’s speech at the NSTA conference.

It is significant that the President and the Secretary of Education pay particular attention to the STEM work, governors are on board, there are special STEM academies and Project Lead the Way, Robotics First and other initiatives are being shared as well as the results of ITEST NSF grants as ways of working.  The vocational science issues that are addressing workforce readiness and the Perkins initiative were also important additions to the discussion from the President and Arnie Duncan. The 21st Century Initiative seems to be more a membership initiative that is looking for state buy in. If they are not really going to include real science, real math, computational math and science, and engineering , they should not call their work STEM initiatives.

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This is a conversation I often have with others, the question being why don’t girls get involved in science, technology , engineering and math. I get a headache every time I see a certain commercial that displays a mother too tired to remember 3 times 4. What? That’s a big deal?

Then there was the Barbie fiasco. Even this week I have been talking to colleagues about exposing teachers to higher math with certain programs. Problem solving, supercomputing, that kind of thing. Take a look at this article and talk to me.

Study: Girls still not swarming into sci-tech, dammit

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/03/girls_in_stem_roundup_study/

US researchers have issued a comprehensive roundup of research covering that hotly-debated topic: Why aren’t there more girls in the sci/tech/engineering/maths-based world? Don’t even mention the kind of math at Shodor.org. But we can do this. Yes we can do math and yes we can do problem solving and there are girls in computer science.. not enough.

In broad outline, the Cornell Uni team of psych specialists (one male lead author, two female co-authors, hem hem) say that the consensus of science suggests that men’s possible biological advantages in maths-based areas could well be a factor in the lack of girls. But that isn’t enough of a factor to fully explain the almost total absence of women from such fields.

According to the new paper, Women’s Underrepresentation in Science: Sociocultural and Biological Considerations, men in general aren’t all that much better than women at maths. But at the high end of ability, especially in spatial and mech/electronic geek type reasoning, there are a lot more chaps:

For both spatial reasoning and mathematics, males are between 1.5 and 2.3 times more likely to be at the high end of the score distribution (including in some analyses >7 times more likely to be at the top 1%). Where males are hugely overrepresented at the high end is in areas of mechanical/electronic reasoning (by a factor of nearly 10 to 1).

But all that said, women today are much more present at the higher end of so-called STEM work (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) than they were: though a lot of the female inroads have been made in areas that aren’t really very techie or maths-y.

In addition to their impressive gains in high school and college, women are increasingly attaining doctorates in STEM fields: By 2001, women earned 36.6% of PhD degrees in scientific and engineering fields, up from just 8% in 1966, though disproportionately more were earned in less math-intensive fields, such as the social and biological sciences (43.5%– 67.1%). Still, women have made impressive gains in attaining doctorates in math-intensive fields as well, obtaining 29% of the PhD degrees in mathematics, 17% in engineering, and 22% in computer sciences. Women’s successes have been even greater in other scientific fields, where they have obtained 50% of medical doctor (MD) degrees, almost 75% of doctor of veterinary medicine (DVM) degrees, and 44% of PhD degrees in biological sciences.

The trick-cyclists say that it’s important not to make too much of the possible inbuilt differences between the sexes, saying that in fact these factors can be warped fairly easily by environment, training etc. For instance, one indicator thought by brain brainboxes to indicate STEM aptitude is the ability to visualise and understand rotations – as in engineering drawings, for instance.

But it appears that if you play enough action-oriented video games, your ability to perform this mental feat goes up – boy or girl. This may offer a clue as to why male college students seem to stay the course better in STEM:

A recent, well-controlled study found that merely playing action video games can narrow gender differences in mental rotation … mental-rotation performance of college women who had one semester of video game training (Tetris) [was] only marginally lower than that of men who had no training (but were given repeated testing on rotation ability), and this was true regardless of pre-existing spatial experience. Perhaps with an even longer intervention, more complete gender convergence would occur.

Even if you assume that gentlemen are just better at maths than ladies are, and don’t get into underlying differences like their parents not forcing little girls to play video games in their youth, females are still rarer than they should be according to the study.

“Women would comprise 33 per cent of the professorships in math-intensive fields if it was based solely on being in the top 1 percent of math ability,” says Stephen Ceci, lead author. “But they currently comprise less than 10 per cent.”

The research suggests a similar pattern across all STEM activities, in commercial and other non-academic contexts in Western-type societies. Ceci and his collaborators ascribe the remaining difference primarily to matters of family life, with women still taking more time out from work than men at critical times in their careers. Discrimination as such wasn’t seen as so much of a factor.

There was also some suggestion that people naturally tend to drift out of the hardball end of STEM activity anyway, and that such a jump was easier and more attractive for those with the people skills at which women were deemed to excel.

“It appears that the family-career trade-offs constitute a major factor in the dearth of women in fields such as engineering, physics, computer science and in higher-level positions in non math-related fields,” says Ceci. “Women who are good in math seem to have more career options. Those who are highly competent in math are more likely than men to have high verbal competence, too, thus opening up the option of going into the humanities or law, which may offer more flexibility in their career tracks.”

Overall it seems the jury’s still out on the underlying causes: but it may be some time before the sweaty locker-room/dungeon of the hardcore STEM geeks sees a (probably welcome) influx of females. The Cornell roundup paper was based on more than 400 previous works, comprising decades of research into the subject.

Those who fancy a proper academic punch-up should probably read the whole paper, here (pdf) (http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/bul1352218.pdf).

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Bans Stifle Social Media’s Potential

3/2/2009 - NSTA Reports—Lynn Petrinjak

Are you LinkedIn? Do your students Tweet during a field trip? If you’re like many NSTA members, the answer is “yes” with a caveat: Not in school.

Preliminary results of a recent online survey of NSTA members show more than half use social media websites at school for professional development and to obtain classroom resources. However, more than 80% of respondents said their schools block internet access to at least some social media sites. In some cases, educators work around this obstacle by downloading materials at home or using personal laptops with wireless connections or other mobile devices in the classroom. Others use methods their administrators—and information technology (IT) colleagues—would likely disapprove of, such as enlisting students’ help to circumvent site blocks or accessing proxy servers.

Some educators follow protocol, submitting requests to administrators or IT staff for access to the sites they need. However, many report frustration with this method. Among the comments shared:

• “I have to justify it to the principal, who then has to justify it to the administration, who then say no anyway.”
• “I have to ask for it to be unblocked on my computer, but our IT guys aren’t here on site.”
• “Beg and plead, but usually to no avail.”
• “Impossible, they won’t listen.”

Such comments indicate these obstacles cause many teachers to simply give up using social media tools in the classroom. Unfortunately, these teachers miss out on opportunities to collaborate with colleagues, and their students lose the opportunity to collaborate with one another.

Gaining Access

James Gates, a recently retired computer science teacher, thinks simple ignorance lies behind many school districts’ decisions to block access to social media sites. Now working as a technology consultant and posting daily technology tips during the school year on his blog, Tipline, he notes most school districts in his area of south central Pennsylvania block all blogs. “There has to be a misunderstanding of what the tool is…the reason they cite is ‘it’s a distraction’ or problems with cyberbullying, problems carrying over to school” from an online forum, Gates says. Other administrators may point to the potential for inappropriate contact between educators and students. “Some teachers can take 50 kids over to Europe for 10 days, but they can’t [communicate with students through social networks]. It drives me crazy.”

Teachers have an “ethical obligation to teach kids” how to use social media appropriately, declares Ben Smith, a physics teacher at Red Lion Area Senior High School in south central Pennsylvania. “Our district has a policy that teachers may not be ‘friends’ of students. If we can’t see the site, we can’t advise them ‘that’s not appropriate.’ Kids post these things and think they’ll go away.”

For instance, Smith helped set up a program providing all students with e-mail accounts, which he pilot tested with his class before making it available to the general student population. Although the pilot went smoothly, problems quickly emerged. “In the first day [of being available schoolwide], we had 73 blocked [e-mail] messages,” he says. Messages were blocked for containing content deemed inappropriate by filters, such as comments on other students’ anatomy. “It was a good demonstration [for students] that there are places you should not be doing that. Personal here, school or business [over] here.”

Bonnie Bracey Sutton, curriculum developer at Thornburg Center for Professional Development in Lake Barrington, Illinois, says parent education can be key to increasing access to social media. “I like to bring parents to school and show what their kids have been missing,” she says. “People who know technology but don’t know how it is used block [web-based collaboration sites like NING or various wikis].” Sutton says she has been working with others in the field, “fighting [to ensure] the beauty of the internet—access to wonderful resources—isn’t diminished by fear.”

When attempting to access a blocked site, Gates advises first identifying its value, asking the question, “What do these tools allow us to do that we can’t do without them?” Then educators have to learn why the site is blocked and who can unblock it.

“They have to be very clear what objections are to that site, meet with the superintendent or whoever makes the decision,” Gates suggests. “If the objection is to blogs because students might embarrass the school, they can show platforms with teacher moderation. They [administrators or IT personnel] may say ‘we block all wikis because anybody could post anything.’ They don’t want to teach proper behavior…[that is] negligence of our responsibility.”

To support their request to use wikis in the classroom, Gates suggests teachers use the Flat Classroom project wiki as an example. Working from Georgia and Bangladesh, teachers Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay set up a wiki as an assessment project for their classes. “They built a wiki together, used NING to communicate with each other,” Gates says. “They used NING to upload videos. That’s how the kids got to know each other in an environment they’re familiar with that has the feel of a Facebook.” He adds the Flat Classroom project now includes 13 classrooms in eight countries.

Social media offers many benefits to educators, according to Smith. Free online software such as graphic organizers can be substituted for software requiring licensing fees, and students can work on team projects from multiple locations.

“I think social networking has a bad name…we have to remember one of the best ways to educate kids is a collaborative environment,” contends Smith, who also conducts workshops and seminars on education technology as a consultant and partner inEdTechInnovators. “We need to leverage the technology. We’re trying to make the case to administrators: You need to go in, create an account, and see (what it’s about).”

Smith cites the photo-sharing website Flickr as an illustration. “Kids on field trips will take pictures on site and then upload them [to Flickr] using their phones. By the time we get back, the pictures are already ready to use,” he explains. In addition, his physics students use school laptops to photograph labs, then post the photos online. “This serves as [a] great review. Sometimes we say everybody upload; sometimes we assign one group. Sometimes I let kids sign licensing agreements. For example, if one lab group’s pictures didn’t work out, they can ask permission to use another group’s pictures.”

Because online options for educators continue to expand and evolve, the question of access will continue to need to be addressed and revisited.

• I often work in areas of the United States where there is little or no connectivity , sometimes it is because of the lack of broadband, but often the lack is the understanding of how to create safety on the Internet. Many of the beautiful sites I love to share are blocked. 
• To get clarity, I attended the Wired Kids Symposium that is created by Parry Aftab.
• Here is what I found . We can use this to share with teachers, technology experts and others who use fear as the motivation for limited use of the Internet.

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