SITE Blog

Pundits and Presidents and ordinary people who “think’ they know teaching need to hear from all sides. Teachers and professors and those involved in education need to speak up and out!! What are your thoughts in education? it is back to school time. Don’t be so tired because of work that you can’t tell your truth.

There are some interesting discussions going on in education.

EFFECTIVE TEACHERS? What is an effective teacher?

Some of the discussions involve using tests to determine who is an effective teacher.

The Los Angeles Times has a whole discussion on effective teacher being evaluated by test scores.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/teachers-investigation/

Read it and weigh in. Some teachers are so upset about it they want to boycott the paper. It is good to see what both sides are saying and then share your opinion. No one gets elected for office without having the interest of the public as a part of their turf. I would not be a good person to advise on basketball, but I know education.

The discussion is hot and heavy. I was pleased to see that Larry Cuban and other real educators, chimed in.

Using Test Scores to Oust Ineffective Teachers

http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/

Larry Cuban was the superintendent who inspired me to stay in teaching. His description and ideational thinking proved food for thought. Since I know him well , I will provide another voice. I thought his piece was well written. When he was a superintendent he had a time set aside to talk with teachers in his office in private once a week. It wasa way of connecting with the community and it made us as teachers feel he had our interest at heart.

Here is a bit of what Dr. Cuban has to say “Principal as hero figure.”

“Such rhetoric and the sharp focus on the principal as an instructional leader among policymakers have made principals into heroic figures who can turn around failing schools, reduce the persistent achievement gap, and leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

“Instead of super-hero strength, however, new principals will need to spend more years on the job than the current ones do to cope with the pressures put on them. Listen to Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City:

“Each school will receive a grade, from ‘A’ to ‘F’ on its year-to-year progress in helping students advance. Personally, I can’t think of a better way to hold a principal’s feet to the fire than arming mom and dad with the facts about how well or poorly their childen’s school is performing.”

“Turning up the heat upon principals by mayors and superintendents–Washington, D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee met with each of the 156 principals when she first arrived and while being interviewed in a televised report fired one of them (off camera)–has increased dramatically in the past decade.”

Some of this is bullying. Using the components of the society that don’t work to hit educators, teachers and professors over the head. Not fair.


What is missing is the voice of the teachers and professors. Your say, your stories , your ideas.

I like the burn and churn description given by Dr. Larry Cuban. I noted as I became an expert in teaching, that people were looking at my age, my salary and wanting to replace me just based on the fact that I was nearing the top of the salary scale. No more Miss Dove. I was told that they could hire two teachers for my one salary.A principal actually harassed me to suggest that I could live my life out going to the country club. ( not possible anyway she forgot my race) It is pretty funny that they often don’t know my level of experience or expertise and therefore just dismiss me as a black teacher. It is ok. I can deal with it. I have a national reputation. I served President Clinton, Al Gore and Ron Brown on the NIIAC.

There is a current contempt, and disrespect for minority teachers, mentor teachers, experienced teachers and those who have survived the various Secretary’s of Education in the Nation. According to some mayors , we the teachers , who make the most minimal of salaries are at fault for the economic deficit in America,
I don’t think so. Here is another voice. Not mine..

From ABC to PHD

Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, follow up on his look last week at the Los Angeles Times project that evaluated teachers by using test score data. Willingham is the author of Why Don’t Students Like School!”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/willingham-3-key-factors-in-te.html

By Daniel Willingham
Last week I criticized the Los Angeles Times for publishing a story that labeled teachers as “highly effective”or “poorest-performing” solely on the basis of a value-added model of student test scores.
Willingham: 3 key factors in teacher evaluation (beyond the hype of value-added)

I am the member of a family that pioneered high school for students of color in the states of Maryland and Virginia. My relatives sued to achieve racial equlty in the schools in Southern Virginia ( Alice Coles vs the City of Petersburg, Va), We as minorities have always been back of the bus, along with the other minorities in the US. Now our teachers are being targeted as the reason. Not fair.

I am a minority. Often people look at me and say, why don’t those people do something about their children. Having worked in the most deficit of schools for a period of my teaching life I suppress the anger, and calmy try to explain. I did other mothering. My father and I laid plumbing for kids. We bought books and furnished the supplies that were needed for the school. There are people who have devoted a life’s work to the digital divide, the technology divide, the information divide the economic divide, and the cultural divide. Now we have the mobile divide. Historically we had the separate but equal divide in everything . There is a cause to pause and think. And we wanted to do harm to students? I don’t think so.
Teaching anywhere is full of the problems in our society.

I do not believe that there are people who stand in classrooms intentionally wanting to do harm to our students on purpose. I believe it is racist to say so. People write to me to tell me about a particular teacher. Many of the teachers were following the dictates of the current school systems when a sea change happened. It started with the use of technology. We still have teachers on the digital dark road without access or knowledge or support for good teaching. I travel the US. I have been in those places. I have worked in a variety of school settings and practiced teaching even in Department of Defense Schools, tribal schools, empowerment and enterprise zones I worked for eight years.I have a cache of letters from teachers who tell the same kind of story I know. They are afraid to speak out.

It would be nice if every teacher went to Stanford, MIT, Harvard and the schools that TFA represent. Not possible. We all however, teach for America.

What is the Problem?

We have a drop out problem, but some of the children who have dropped out are still in school. Their bodies are there but their minds are not. Stories of children lobbing books at teachers when they turned their back were a feature here in Washington DC. I could tell you more dark stories, but people don’t want to hear about poverty , hunger, bad family support, and or the lack of support. I had children having sex with the men who sold sandwiches because they were hungry, children dropping down elevator shafts. But people don’t want to hear abotu the reality of the problem. Much easier to blame it on a teacher.

They want to hear about some super woman who can change all that with a sweep of the hand. There is no such person who can do this alone. It takes a village.
In my community there were children who died and were mummified when found.
I suppose we could hold the teacher at fault except that the children never went to school. We even had children whose parent put them in the freezer and preserved the body. The social services and other departments of government were a part of this problem. The children died without even being missed.

Who were the dropouts?
Most of the dropouts were Latino or black, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Alternative Schools Network in Chicago, Illinois. “Because of the widespread, pressing nature of the crisis and the large numbers of young people who have already dropped out, a national re-enrollment strategy should be a fundamental part of America’s national education agenda,” the report says.

If I take the back roads of Virginia, I pass by a lot of correctional institutions. The majority of those incarcerated are minority. It is a wasteland.We have a prison problem and an industry of prisons that needs to be replaced.The cost of incarceration far outweighs the cost of a good school and professional development for teachers who are in service now.

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 754 persons in prison or jail per 100,000 (as of 2008).[15] A report released Feb. 28, 2008 indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prison.[16] The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population[17] and 23.4% of the world’s prison population.[18]

But that’s another story.

The children in harm’s way are being targeted by the Dept of Education. This is a good thing. But there is a big misunderstanding of the reason for the problems. We don’t want to sink the ship of the Dept. of Education, we just want the real problems to be a part of the discussion. Making teachers walk the plank .. not a good solution .

Bonnie Bracey Sutton

Comments(1)

We are pleased to announce the release of the book Research Highlights in Technology and Teacher Education 2010, published by SITE – Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education, http://site.aace.org.

This book of strongly refereed papers, selected from those submitted for the 2010 annual conference, follows in the tradition of its 2009 predecessor. The 2009 edition has already risen to the status of “Most Viewed” among the 26,000 entries in the EdITLib – Education & Information Technology Digital Library, http://EdITLib.org. We are confident the 2010 edition will be viewed by our readers in a similar fashion.

This volume represents hundreds of hours of scholarly work by Editors Cleb Maddux, David Gibson, and Bernie Dodge; as well as by the authors, reviewers, copy editors and layout staff.

As the state of teacher education and technology, Research Highlights in Technology and Teacher Education 2010 would make an excellent class and individual resource.

_________________________________________

Purchase: for $21.95 at the SITE/AACE Bookshelf: http://aace.org/bookshelf.htm

Or

Subscribe: This and other SITE/AACE books are included with a subscription to the EdITLib Digital Library, http://EdITLib.org/subscribe

__________________________________________

See you at the SITE 2011 conference in Nashville, Tennessee; March 7-11! (http://site.aace.org/conf )

Yours in the Friendly Society,

Gerald Knezek, SITE President
Gary Marks, SITE Executive Director
Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE)

Comments(0)

Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Following Professional Development Initiatives for Educators
This is my 4th ( fourth ) learning initiative this summer.I do this much in the way I was an activist in civil rights.
I believe that we teachers are empowered with proper professional development and support and able to reach
a large audience of the educational community.

Beginning Steps

SCALABLE GAME DESIGN
I took a course at the Atlas Institute at Colorado University with Dr. Alexander Repenning on Scalable Game Design. That was a very intensive immersion into gaming.

http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/Teacher_program

We started with frogger. http://www.freeonlinegames.com/adventure-games/frogger.html.Ok, that is a video, but I really , really made the game. We had the best teachers. Many squashed frogs later, I had created a whole game.

I have heard so much from researchers and others that teachers could not do this work that I take the course. I believe that people do not understand that teachers need sustained professional development and support for their technology work. Encouragement helps too.

Professional Organization Support

ISTE a learning initiative but is in reality a conference. I learned that it was too big and that I needed to go online to get some of the valuable information that is the treasure of face to face that a conference is. I never found Larry Anderson, but people kept giving me messages that he was looking for me. ISTE has incredible support for K-12 educators.

GRASS ROOTS INITIATIVE ( ITEST FUNDED)
http://itestlrc.edc.org/
We did a grass roots initiative at the Denver School of Science and Technology that was the
way in which some of us satisfied our concern for those who could not attend ISTE because of financial reasons. Joyce Malyn Smith of EDC funded our lunch, Eli Regalado of Denver ICOSA
found the place for us and supported us locally, and other sisters of mine in education came in and did workshops, sharing and teaching. That would include Katie Klinger, Karen North, Carolyn Staudt, Mano Talaiver, Joyce Pittman, and the guys, Vic Sutton, Allan Jones, and others who did the keynotes. Joyce Malyn Smith and Alexander Repenning

We wanted to do outreach to those who economically were not able to attend ISTE, but to share
educational information.
The Grass Roots Initiative Reaching the Underserved

http://wininstem.eventbrite.com/

TERAGRID

https://www.teragrid.org/web/eot/

You may not know much about computational thinking. I work with EOT people to learn , how can we involved K-12 teachers in the computational sciences. This was a conference in Pittsburgh. There is a very supportive community of researchers there.

GLOBALORIA
http://www.worldwideworkshop.org/programs/globaloria
I am now at the Globaloria Teacher Institute in Charleston West Virginia . There is formal
support and set up for teachers and we are being promoted through the setting up of accounts, wikis, managing a blog, Contacts and web logins, ways to show progress reports, student evaluation , knowledge area resources, and other sets of information that a teacher might need. . There is an academy approach. It is very supportive .

You can find the Educator’s Wiki at http://www.myglife.org/usa/wvwiki/
To use this Globaloria there are threaded instructional pages and this face to face
training. It is exciting to be with real teachers.

Note the carefully created ideational scaffolding for Globaloria.
This project is different than just stumbling through learning how.

http://www.worldwideworkshop.org/programs/globaloria

Album

photos of some days of the academy

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=247311&id=593996326

Globaloria is an engaging, student-centered delivery mechanism to teach STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Along the way, students also learn game design, programming, wiki formatting, writing, and multimedia production skills.
http://www.worldwideworkshop.org/press#thejournal

Here is a great article on Globaloria

http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/05/19/From-Instruction-to-Construction-Rethinking-the-Classroom-Model-with-Globaloria.aspx?Page=1

This is guided professional development with a capital P. Awesome. More than that it is a state initiative that is scaling up. All of us as teacher leaders can teach for America with guidance.

Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Power of US

Comments(0)

My parents , both teachers warned me that being a teacher is sometimes a thankless job. I entered teaching anyway. I collected lots of prizes and helped a lot of students, and spent a great deal of personal money, and was helped by many organizations to be the best I could be. You know what! It worked, but now there is a set of pundits, politicians, and policy makers who are being given bogus information and targeting teachers as the cause of difficulty in education. I won’t even discuss what is going on in my city of Washington , DC where people are ” Waiting for Superman”. Schools require many factors for success, here are several viewpoints!! It is hard for politicians to know the learning landscape. They should be advised. Minute new does not use the inverted V. I ask you to take time to examine several viewpoints and also some data.

Let Us Now Praise Teachers

Teachers are underappreciated, underpaid, and under a lot of undeserved pressure. Yet they hold the future of our communities and our nation in their hands. Beyond curriculum, technology, or community partnerships, teachers are the single most important factor in a student’s learning. They are the spark that ignites a student’s learning, through communicating their passion for their subjects and touching not just students’ minds, but their hearts, as well.

Back in 1992, George Lucas stood on the world’s stage at the Oscars and received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for lifetime achievement. It sits in a glass case near our offices. When I point out the award to visiting educators, they still recall that moment, more than 18 years ago, when George thanked his teachers (which, they often note, today’s Oscar winners rarely do). Lucas said, “All of us who make motion pictures are teachers, teachers with very loud voices. But we will never match the power of the teacher who is able to whisper in a student’s ear.”

Everyone has a story about that one favorite teacher who took an interest in them, told them they were smart, or encouraged them to pursue a subject or a sport. I’ve always been impressed by how even a single remark from one teacher can influence a student’s path. Delaine Eastin, one of most distinguished former California state superintendents, used to tell the story of being a shy girl until a drama teacher told her she ought to try out for a play. Eastin learned that she loved performing onstage. She became a riveting speaker, a popular state legislator, and the highest elected education official in the nation–all sparked by one comment from a compassionate teacher.

I had a similar experience. Having warmed both the A and B team benches during an inglorious freshman basketball season, I was casting about for a student activity during the winter of my sophomore year at John Hersey High School, near Chicago. My English teacher, Richard Panagos, was the speech coach and encouraged me to try out. I ended up winning two state championships in after-dinner and extemporaneous speaking and I still enjoy what most people cite as their greatest fear, even beyond snakes: public speaking.

Every week should be Teacher Appreciation Week. So let’s make sure that, starting this week, we do more to thank the teachers we had and the teachers our daughters and sons have. Let’s resolve to compliment teachers more, through a pat on the back, a handshake, or a card, and express our appreciation for the important national service they’re providing. It’s a gift that will keep on giving as they pass on that warmth to their students. And it won’t require a federal appropriation or a board of education vote.

In a future column, I’ll say more about the power of praise and how a kind word from teachers and parents can go a long way to fuel students’ self-confidence and persistence. Gratitude and praise should be among our nation’s abundant renewable resources for fueling the success of our teachers and students.
Edutopia’s former executive director Milton Chen on why every week should be Teacher Appreciation Week.

Source URL: http://www.edutopia.org/node/23239
This article originally published on 5/3/2010 during Teacher Appreciation Week

It is Not OK to Blame Teachers

A recent action alert from the United Church of Christ reported that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is predicting that up to 300,000 jobs in public schools may be lost due to the recession. In cities like Chicago and Cleveland school officials are predicting class sizes of 35 to 45 for next fall. Meanwhile, as high school seniors plan for their graduation ceremonies, a new round of “blame the victim” seems to be in vogue. In this case it is the vulnerable teaching profession that seems to be under siege.

Earlier this year Arne Duncan and Barack Obama publicly affirmed the decision of a Rhode Island school district to fire every teacher at a failing public high school. Do we really think every teacher at that high school deserved to be fired? Subsequent negotiations between the district and the school board have led to the rehiring of many of those teachers, but under enforced new work rules. This spring the governor of New Jersey, angry at the pace of negotiations with teachers’ unions, publicly urged citizens to vote down their school levies knowing full well what kind of devastating impact that would have on public school classrooms in his state.

This Sunday The Cleveland Plain Dealer published a front page report on teachers in the Cleveland Public Schools that, at least to me, seemed designed to paint teachers in the worst possible light as overpaid, underworked, intransigent about reform, and not overly competent.

What’s going on here?

No one can deny that there is a desperate financial crisis hitting our schools this year. The inadequacy of a school funding system that relies heavily on property taxes privileges suburban school districts at the expense of rural and urban districts. Year by year its flaws grow more apparent, yet year by year we steadfastly refuse to reform it. State budgets are in freefall in an environment where few are willing to consider any rise in income taxes to maintain even the most essential public services. No can deny that there are some mediocre teachers protected by employment rules that need reform. But there are also plenty of mediocre doctors, lawyers, and clergy around; no one hears them pilloried as a class in quite the same way teachers are being viewed today.

The fascination with testing, ushered in by the “No Child Left Behind” law, has made it easy to point fingers at failing schools and their teachers, as if the only solution to our education crisis was to throw the bums out and start over again. But how would you like to have to prepare third graders in a class of thirty-five or more for math and science tests, when many of those students move in and out of your classroom due to the instability of their homes and when support from parents can never be assumed?

What’s going on here?

Certainly union busting is part of what’s going on. Public officials see a rare opportunity to diminish the power of teachers’ unions in this climate and are doing what they can to discredit organizations that have done much to ensure that teachers are rewarded and protected at a level commensurate with other professions. People are angry and frustrated with a broken public school system that vouchers, charter schools, and testing haven’t repaired. Having run out of the easier fixes, the public is looking for the next easy and painless fix – blame the teachers.

The balkanization of our public school system and the economic segregation of our communities ensures that districts with the biggest challenges have the fewest resources. And let’s be honest, for most people passionate interest in public schools begins when the first child enters kindergarten and ends when the last child graduates from high school.

How many of us know much of anything about what’s going on in our public schools when we don’t have our own children or grandchildren attending them?

When you travel across the country through numerous county seat towns and cities, it’s easy to see what was important to those who established those communities. They built – at great personal sacrifice – churches, schools, libraries, and court houses, public institutions that provided for the general welfare of their communities rather than simply the private mercantile interests if its citizens. Usually these buildings were architecturally grand, dominating the landscape, announcing to all that the spiritual, intellectual, and moral enrichment of the public was a central priority.

What do we build today? Sports arenas. In the New York area alone the last five years have seen the building of two new baseball stadiums, a football stadium, and a basketball arena, all built around lavish accommodations for those privileged few who can buy luxury boxes.

The city I’ve lived in for the last 18 years has as its community slogan, “A city is known by the schools it keeps.” If that’s true, then our nation increasingly should be embarrassed. Many of our public schools are a mess, and until we all take a good look at ourselves in the mirror, blaming the teachers will not only be unfair, it will only make matters worse. How many of our best and brightest young people, watching the jobs in education dry up and the public perception of the profession under assault, will be eager to devote their lives to the public schools?

Here in Chicago there are many trying to ring the warning bells about the plight of our schools and our teachers. Sadly, for many those warning bells, like school bells, don’t seem to be very compelling or urgent. Here there seems to be more attentiveness to the horns at the United Center signaling another goal in the Black Hawks’ run for a Stanley Cup. When Jesus took a child in his lap, he demonstrated a central vocation of the church. Today that vocation means many things, but at the center ought to be our shared commitment to public schools and to those who teach in them.

John H. Thomas

http://www.ctschicago.edu/index.php/mnusocialmedia/john-thomas-blog/200-its-not-ok-to-hate-teachers

If this post is too religious for you , try this one by Diane Ravitz.
Bridging Differences

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/BridgingDifferences/2010/04/should_student_scores_be_used.html

Wherever I go, I meet many teachers who say virtually the same thing: They have never been more demoralized in their professional lives. They feel that they are scapegoats for everything that is wrong in American education. Arne Duncan and Barack Obama, even more than Margaret Spellings and George W. Bush, are giving credibility to the idea that 100 percent of students should be proficient, that teachers are to blame when test scores are not 100 percent proficient, that teachers use students’ poverty as just an excuse for their bad teaching, and that firing teachers is laudable and courageous. Teachers say that they worked hard to elect Obama, and they now feel betrayed by his negative attitudes about teachers. They say, “If only Obama or Duncan would spend a few days in my classroom…”

So, the big idea today is that the way to fix American education is to identify bad teachers and fire them. I agree that we should get rid of bad teachers (but only after a fair hearing, in which charges against them are substantiated). But I also believe that this issue is a red herring that distracts us from far more important issues.

Right now, I would say that Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Race to the Top are more injurious to American education than bad teachers. There is a way to solve the problem of bad teachers. They can be denied tenure or fired, but no one knows how to stop the damage done by NCLB and the predictable damage that will be done by RTTT.

Right now, many states are hoping to qualify for RTTT billions by introducing laws to evaluate teachers by student test scores. Teachers know this is unfair because student performance depends on many factors beyond the teachers’ control (like regular attendance and student motivation), as well as the fact that students are not randomly assigned to classes and teachers. However much NCLB promotes teaching to the test, think how much worse it will be when teachers’ salaries are tied to test scores.

I received an email from Dr. Harry Frank, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who has written textbooks about testing and measurement. Dr. Frank wrote that the first principle for valid assessment is that “no assessment can be used at the same time for both counseling and for administrative decisions (retention, increment, tenure, promotion). … All this does is promote cheating and teaching to the exam. … This principle is so basic that it’s often covered in the very first chapter of introductory texts on workplace performance evaluation.” [The full text of Dr. Frank's email is posted on my Web site, www.dianeravitch.com, in a section called "comments."] I asked Dr. Frank to explain the word “counseling,” and he said that this meant “feedback on performance for purposes of skills development,” what we might think of as the diagnostic use of an assessment. Dr. Frank also added: “Assessments should be a counseling resource, not a source of extrinsic motivation, i.e., rewards and punishments for teachers, administrators, and school districts.”

Put simply, tests and assessments should inform teachers about student progress and their own teaching, i.e., what can be learned from the test results. But it is inappropriate to use the same test results to hand out bonuses and punishments, promotions and tenure.

Thus, if any of our public officials is talking to testing experts, they are likely to discover that their plans to evaluate teachers by student test scores are technically invalid and will produce perverse (but predictable) effects that actually damage learning and are likely to undermine the teaching profession.

Diane Ravitz

After reading all of this you may be data hungry. Try NCTAF. Who Will Teach

Read the full report:
Who Will Teach? Experience Matters

http://www.nctaf.org/WhoWillTeachExperienceMatters.htm

Between 2004 and 2008, 300,000 veteran teachers left the workforce for retirement. Baby Boom teachers who made lifelong commitments to education are retiring, and in many cases are taking their hard-earned wisdom with them.

See the Shifts in the Age of the National Teaching Workforce.

Why can’t we just recruit our way out of this challenge? Because the rate at which new teachers leave has been increasing steadily over the last 15 years.

Together, these trends have resulted in a precipitous drop in experience in the classroom. In 1987-88 the typical teacher had 15 years of experience, but by 2007-08 the typical teacher had just 1 to 2 years of experience.

See the Dramatic Shifts in K-12 Teaching Experience.

Every state will be impacted by these shifts. Schools that have depended on a core of veteran teachers are already seeing those teachers retire, and in some cases are creating new work arrangements for teacher at or nearing retirement.
What does the situation look like in your state?

Your thoughts? And to whom did you write them!!

Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Digital Equity Chair ISTE
Digital Equity and Social Justice Chair , SITE

Comments(0)

The members of SIG DE,SITE DE and Social Justice, Colorado Educational Groups, Leading Educators
and people interested in transformational change in schools want to
provide a learning experience that you will enjoy .

It is a pre-conference event.

A one-day workshop, Denver, 27 June 2010
The workshop is free of charge and we are providing lunch.

We are looking for people from Colorado whether or not they are
attending the ISTE conference this year.

We are looking for educational leaders who would enjoy informed networking.

We want to serve the under served. Rural, minorities, and
those who feel left out of the conversation . Add your voice.

We celebrate teachers, that’s why it is free. This has been a hard economic year for teachers
It is a special event to unites several types of groups .

Parents and community members are also welcome to learn along with us.
Bring friends. Share this with friends, parents, minority groups and or
others who would might be interested.

The institute provides training for technology integration and 21st century skills for K-12 teachers and
administrators and awareness for parents and advocacy groups.

The Digital Equity SIGs began as Minority Leadership Symposiums. We want to unite and share STEM and Emerging technologies in a Symposium. We want to broaden engagement and bring the underserved,
to new ways of working, but also unite those of you who are working and
learning in these areas and who give support.

We celebrate those who teach, who help teachers and who want to make
great learning communities.

http://wininstem.eventbrite.com/

Please circulate. Lets gather and broaden engagement in many ways.

Confirmed Location:

Denver School of Science and Technology

http://www.scienceandtech.org/index.php

How to Get in the STEM Game and Win it!

A Transformational Workshop

Goals:

1. Who are the under served in STEM nationally, locally and how can we broaden engagement in STEM?( what is broadening engagement)
2. What professional development activities / supports transformational change for teachers?
3. How can we inform the learning community about successful projects in meaningful ways?
4. What national projects show great promise and are scalable in the various areas of STEM?
5. What cyber tools, and online resources are available for teachers that make a difference?
6. Who are people involved in STEM who can be mentors, or peer resources for schools and
communities?

Outcomes

At the end of the event, participants will gain an understanding of the problem of Workforce Readiness and a working definition of STEM and will:

1. have exposure to 5 STEM programs they didn’t know existed.
2. be able to identify 5 resources that would enhance their own STEM efforts
3. be more articulate on where their STEM efforts fit within the national and their own state efforts
4. Be able to clearly articulate the need for increased attention to STEM education in our schools and in
particular in their immediate situation
5. Identify at least 3 technology tools that would be useful to enhance their STEM education program
6. become aware of national professional development opportunities
7. Understand ideas in computational thinking and projects.

Agenda

The agenda is set up to provide information in the morning and to
gather and use information in the afternoon. The afternoon interactive
sessions will begin with brief presentations by the session moderators,
followed by an interactive discussion relying heavily on ideas and
comments form the participants. At the conclusion of each interactive
session the moderator will ask the group to identify the top 2-3 ideas
from that session. These best ideas from all three interactive sessions
on each topic will be presented to the whole group during the wrap-up
session. Interactive whiteboards and student response systems from
Promethean will be used as productivity tools for information gathering
and prioritizing items.

8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Registration & Materials Pick up
Coffee and Juice

During this time we will project a series of student profile video’s
from the Edutopia website http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation

Digital Generation http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation

Today’s kids are born digital — born into a media-rich, networked
world of infinite possibilities. But their digital lifestyle is about
more than just cool gadgets; it’s about engagement, self-directed
learning, creativity, and empowerment.

9:00 – 9:15 a.m. STEM explorations in ITEST

Welcome by Joyce Maylin-Smith from the Education Development Center
(EDC) www.edc.org sponsored by the ITEST program. The EDC designs,
delivers and evaluates innovative programs to address some of the
world’s most urgent challenges in education, health, and economic
opportunity.and Manorama Talaiver from the Institute for Teaching
through Technology & Innovative Practices, Longwood University.

http://www.ittip.us/

Here’s the stuff

Making Sense out of STEM – min followed by a discussion ) . It would
cover three “levels” – STEM for living/learning and working – the STEM
enabled citizen that I have seen mentioned in some emails back and
forth; STEM for all careers – the concept that a bit more sophisticated
level of STEM conceptual understanding and skill is needed as science,
technology, engineering and mathematics are used at work in various
industries; and the STEM professional – technicians, technologists,
scientists, engineers, mathematicians who form that part of the
workforce many people think about as STEM workers .

She has workforce development templates to share.

Learn about The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and
Teachers (ITEST) program established in 2003 by the National Science
Foundation. The ITEST Program funds a variety of innovative projects to
increase STEM learning and career exploration. Projects design,
implement, and evaluate models that engage youth and educators in
STEM-rich, contextual learning experiences; scale-up successful
practices or conduct research enriching our understanding of how to
enlarge the country’s STEM workforce.

Here is more than you need to know

http://itestlrc.edc.org/

ITEST on Twitter http://twitter.com/ITEST_LRC

ITEST on Facebook http://tinyurl.com/ITEST-LRC-Facebook

Information on ITEST

“I Am a Scientist”

Young people in grades K-12 use sophisticated technology to explore
their environment, conduct research, build programmable machines, and
create media in community settings after school and during the summer.
Across all ITEST projects, youth are using the same technologies,
tools, and methods that scientists use on the job.

Authentic Learning

Teachers work together with students to pursue research questions and
deepen their scientific and technological expertise—and learn
strategies for integrating IT concepts, skills, and applications into
their classrooms. Teachers are learning the strengths of combining
formal and informal learning environments together to create authentic
learning experiences for their students.

Engage Businesses( a model)

9:15 – 9:35 Ken Robinson Video

9:35 – 10:00 . STEM Happenings in Colorado – Phil Lawson –

http://www.spherit.com/about.htm

Phil Lawson will describe the work his group is doing to grow community
support and effort to address issues of digital equity and STEM in
Colorado using Spherit’s unique set of connectivity tools/ Getting
community support

Dr. Camchao

Here is a treat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXmJZBWZewY

Businesses have launched a number of initiatives. We want to model what
you can do in your community, and how businesses can help you. The
National Lab Day is in reality an event that allows people to find the
businesses in their community who want to provide support.
Colorado has a great event to share.

10:00 – 10:25 Alexander Repenning http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/
Alex will describe the impact that the tools he has developed can be
used to grow student interest in computational thinking and computer
programming. This is an example of a successful ITEST program. A list
of other similar resources will be provided to participants.

Computational What?.. you will love it and him. Digital Generation Tools

10:25 – 10:40 . Break and networking

10:40 – 11:20 Carolyn Staudt – http://www.Concord.org
(The Concord Consortium is a nonprofit educational research and
development organization based in Concord, Massachusetts. Carolyn will
describe the resources available from her organization and the role
ITEST played in supporting the work..)

11:20 – 12:00 Allan Jones – www.emaginos.com and Eli Regalado

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Lewis Carroll.
Allan will lead the group through a process starting with a clean slate
to design an optimum school district that provides STEM, Digital
Equity, reduced dropouts, etc. He will then compare this ideal model
with a known pilot program called “Schools of Discovery and Innovation”

12:00 – 12:45 Lunch /Networking

Lunch provided

Welcome from Mark Heffron, High School Director, Denver School of
Science and Technology with a brief presentation of a videos from
students describing why they chose/like the school.

Afternoon sessions Unconference mode

There will be three interactive sessions that attendees will
participate in. If you’re here as a part of a team, we recommend you
split up and attend different sessions because the participants will be
sharing information so each session should be different from the next.

12:45 – 1:20 p.m. Repeated Session 1
1:25 – 2:00 p.m. Repeated Session 2
2:05 – 2:40 p.m. Repeated Session 3

Repeated Session topics

• ITEST(Joyce and Mano)
o What it is
o How to get support for your ideas
o How to access existing programs.
• Other Exemplary STEM programs
o Globaloria
o Shodor.
o My Wonderful World
o High Performance Computing
• Identifying additional outstanding STEM programs and projects
o What programs are available?
o How do you find them?
o How do you integrate them?

2:45 – 3:20 p.m. Parallel Sessions
Parallel Session Topics
The three parallel sessions will only occur once, so attendees will
need to select one of them to participate in.

o Gender Equity programs (Bonnie Bracey Sutton)
o ELL and early reading initiatives (John Carr – Award Reading)
o Networking – next steps (Allan Jones)
3:25 – 4:00 p.m. Wrap up Session
• Highlights from 3 Interactive sessions
• Next Steps summary and discussion

In addition to the handouts available at the session, everyone
attending (who provides an email address) will be sent a Workshop
Summary document that will provide highlights from the sessions ands
links to resources.

We have a composite document that is a repository of STEM and Emerging
technologies that will be given on a DVD.

Broadening Engagement. We have programs for ELL that are delightful and
after school gems.

You can register by writing to me
Subject/ Registration Colorado initiative.

Give your name, school , and email.

I will answer any questions you may have. None of this works if we
don’t do grass roots and work from the classroom up. This has been a
hard year for teachers, come be with teachers and friends in this
event. We have done lots of the work for you , we need YOU.. You are
special !!

Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Digital Equity SIG
ISTE

Digital Equity and Social Justice Chair
SITE

Circulate to your friends

Comments(1)

How do we encourage women in STEM? Computational Sciences?

The “digital divide” that persists in Internet use based on income, education and community means people are not acquiring the digital fluency that is required to operate in to-day’s world

Let’s Talk Gender

In an era when women are increasingly prominent in medicine, law and business, why are there so few women scientists and engineers? A new research report by AAUW presents compelling evidence that can help to explain this puzzle. Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics presents in-depth yet accessible profiles of eight key research findings that point to environmental and social barriers – including stereotypes, gender bias and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities – that continue to block women’s participation and progress in science, technology, engineering, and math. The report also includes up to date statistics on girls’ and women’s achievement and participation in these areas and offers new ideas for what each of us can do to more fully open scientific and engineering fields to girls and women.

From Why So Few AAUW

Definition of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
STEM is defined in many ways (for example, see a U.S. government
definitions
The term “STEM” refers to the physical,
biological, and agricultural sciences; computer and information
sciences; engineering and engineering technologies;
and mathematics. The social and behavioral sciences, such as
psychology and economics, are not included, nor are health
workers, such as doctors and nurses. College and university
STEM faculty are included when possible, but high school
teachers in STEM subjects are not. While all of these workers
are part of the larger scientific and engineering workforce,
their exclusion is based on the availability of data. In this
report the terms “STEM,” “science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics,” and “scientific and engineering fields” are
used interchangeably.

Resources cited below are here at this URL.
You have to give information to get the resources.

http://www.aauw.org/…esearch/whysofew.cfm

Before we can make it better we have to know the data about the lack of involvement. Then we need to create opportunities , break the silos and engage teachers, pre-service teachers and the learning community in networked ways.

To get background here are the resources from the AAUW ” Why So Few?” sharing this information will help a lot. Most teachers in classroom are women so the gender information is important to know. It is positive to have the information to act on.

PowerPoint Presentations
Share findings from Why So Few? at meetings, conferences, and other events.

Long version – This hour-long presentation can be broken down into shorter segments and customized for your use.
Short version – This version of the hour-long presentation can be given in approximately 25 minutes.
Capitol Hill Briefing
Nobel Laureate Carol Greider spoke at a Capitol Hill briefing on May 4 with report co-author Christianne Corbett.

Video
Transcript (PDF)
National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) Webcast
Did you miss the April presentation? View webcast materials and the video recording on the NGCP website.

Gender-Science IAT
Take the test described in Why So Few? Select Demo, go to Demo, select the Gender-Science IAT.

Very rich resources are at this site.

NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology. We are a coalition of over 200 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in information technology (IT). NCWIT is a 501(c)(3)*, established in 2004 with startup funding from the National Science Foundation, Avaya, Microsoft, Pfizer, Bank of America, Intel, HP, the Kauffman Foundation, and Qualcomm.

NCWIT Resources http://www.ncwit.org/resources.res.html

http://www.ncwit.org/

My favorite is the data sheet, by the numbers.(Click on this to get the PDF(Check out more statistics about Women and IT.)

NCWIT Resources

http://www.ncwit.org/resources.res.html

Information technology represents the intersection of data, communication, analysis, and design over a broad network; NCWIT’s resources strive to reflect a similar level of functionality, innovation, and breadth

http://www.ncwit.org/work.overview.html

NCWIT is working to improve both the public image of IT and the number of girls and women who choose it by broadening its appeal and by giving young people a chance to see that IT is valuable work and a great career choice. Outreach resources and campaigns include Outreach-in-a-Box, the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing, Gotta Have IT, NCWIT Heroes, By the Numbers, and Information Technology: how the power of IT and the power of women will power the future.

NCWIT’s work leverages the efforts of organizations across the country, and connects efforts to increase women’s participation in IT along the entire pipeline, from K-12 and higher education through industry and academic careers. NCWIT encourages its members to undertake institutional change within their organizations, and our work provides them with the tools and support to be change agents.

Girls and women who are involved in the various organizations get networked opportunities and the support of a community.

This was an outstanding workshop that focused on positive ways to improve STEM using best practices it included gender and minority examples that answered these questions.

National Science Board Meeting

http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/meetings/2009/0824/index.jsp

Guiding questions
Once we understand the characteristics of a potential innovator , how do we initiative the innovation process and develop a possible STEM innovator in order to increase the likelihood of productivity over an entire career. What kinds of schools or formal learning settings? formal?
How can we expand the kinds of opportunities that have promising evidence on effectiveness to broader populations of students? How do we raise the ceiling o potential for the exceptionally gifted and or motivated student? Why do talent losses occur at critical transitional points in institutional components of the innovation life cycle. What are the policy implications?

Informal learning, Cyber- learning, and Innovation education

Guiding questions , Informal learning, cyber- learning and innovative education

What kinds of informal learning settings, are effective for motivating students to keep and develop the skills needed to become a potential STEm innovator?

How can we expand the kinds of opportunities that have been promising evidence on effectiveness to move and broaden populations of high potential students?

How can new technologies be harnessed to serve the development and possibly enhance productivity of future STEM innovators?

Networking across multiple disciplines and generate improvements in both formal and traditional learning environments that might nurture STEM innovation potential. What are the policy implications.?

Identifying and Nurturing Under-developed STEM talent’
Identifying underdeveloped pools of STEM talent and the community role in fostering achievement

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Saving the Planetarium in Arlington

I got an urgent message from an ex student , now a friend. She said ” Miss Bracey they are going to close the Planetarium!!” We tried to figure out what to do. In the end it was a passionate teacher and parent who saved the day, but we oiled the wheels to get the fight started. You can read about it here We talked to the Washington Post. We wrote letters. We enlisted the help of other former students. A parent with this video saved the day.

History

Maybe someone taught me about the stars in school. If so I don’t remember it. What I remember is some lady from NASA who did a presentation on the cultural aspects of astronomy at the Smithsonian. Pictures from Egypt, the Maya and many other sources. That kept me reading and thinking a long time. My first visit to a planetarium was as a teacher in Arlington , VIrginia. Steve Smith was the director and the link to NASA for me. I am a Challenger Fellow. I don’t know how to repay NASA for the things I learned, but the first link was from the Planetarium. The second link was Star Wars and the imagination and interest of the children I taught. We built robots, we created space ships, we made planetary cities and yes, we made telescopes.

I live in Washington DC. You don’t see a lot of stars in the night sky here. I taught in Arlington Virginia and had access to the Planetarium there. I discovered that a planetarium was a fascinating place. My students and I went often. It was before a lot of technology, but you know there are things that can be shared in a planetarium that make sense because you see them. The children and I found out about NASA resources and some of us were on a lifelong journey. Young Astronauts, the Challenger Center and working to follow in Christa McAuliffe’s step, kept me busy. When Christa died, I had created a classroom to show a simulated inside of a shuttle. I left the broadcast for a moment. It was the fatal moment.
When I returned all eyes were on me. The explosion had happened. All day long children hugged me. They thought because I had an astronaut jumpsuit that I might have been a candidate for being in the shuttle.( not) I was heartbroken but the lesson I learned from that day is that children are colorblind and that hard work is easy if it is interesting. I followed the NASA initiatives. I thought, if the children think I can be an astronaut, I can at least learn more. And I have done a lot. But the work that the children did was amazing.

Most of the NASA initiatives happened in the Arlington Planetarium. What is that? It is the David M. Brown Planetarium. I am afraid I never knew or did not remember to whom it was dedicated. Here is the link.

http://aps.schoolwires.com/1540108291847373/site/default.asp

Linking the Planetarium with the Night Sky

Another adventure I had was with Phoebe Knipling at the Outdoor Lab. Mr. Hunsucker used his flashlight to tell us about the night sky ( I never saw a thing with that flashlight), but Phoebe had a ginormous telescope that she would get Mr. Hunsucker to open the shed so we could use it and point to the night sky. We could see the stars from Haymarket , Virginia.

Sometimes when it was the right time of year there were amateur astronomers who would come to the Outdoor lab and let kids look through their telescopes. Our school was near enough to NSF that I could run and get some wonderful posters and information.

The Planetarim…First you teach the seasonal stuff and then…

Using telescopes As Planet Earth wheels its way around the sun, our nightly sky-viewing platform redirects our view to a different part of the celestial sphere. While nightly changes are not so noticeable, monthly changes welcome new star groups into view and bid farewell to others until their season in the sky returns. I guess you can teach this on a computer, but the problem is everyone does not have one. A planetarium is an experience that is
what I called an involved aesthetic experience.
It is art and music and vision and light and so on. It depends on the skill of the person
teaching the lesson and the teacher supporting the lesson and the resources that are available. Some years I had Mike Lounge , the astronaut and a couple of others who came to the classroom. Some years I was taking courses at the Hubble Space Science Institute. We had books, resources, a computer and constructivist projects.

But I digress

You know what S-mores are ? WHen I saw kids pass up anothe S’more and hot cocoa to get in line for the telescope, I knew that it was fascinating. We used the planetarium, we looked at the night sky and we had NASA as a resource, later in my teaching career we had
the Challenger Center. The NASA initiatives were wonderful. There was Moon Base Alpha, and then Marsville, and later Mars City Alpha. It never was a problem to get the kids to learn
the information. My students were generous enough with their learning to create a Mars CIty Alpha for kids who were not in my class. They did it after school. I saw it when I was driving my car home. I almost ran off of the road. We loved those learning projects. While the visit to the Challenger Center was one day, we worked to build the knowledge to be able to work on that one day. It was fascinating for the students and for me.

We wore NASA out. We had parents who were astronauts, access to Langley and some of us, as teacher advocates took lessons from NASA and we had stuff. We had access to tapes, books, and there was a thing you could do with wonderful posters from the NASA science resource center. You could make your classroom so beautiful with those posters , which were learning experiences. We built systems for space, pondering the problems. We did bottle biology and fish farming. George Lucas fueled our imagination with his movies and at the time I was on the advisory board, so I would come back from the ranch with movies and games. We had lots of things, but the planetarium was our meeting place for initiatives and learning more.

I signed up for the moon rocks, but we never got them. I never had a principal who cared enough to allow me to share the moon rocks. But , the Smithsonian was there. Here’s a view of what I can share with kids using the Smithsonian, and the resource out at
NASA. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=142804&id=593996326

I did get the space suit to let kids try on from time to time. Never got the van that was supposed to come to the schools either. Principals were often suspicious of these initiatives . So I went to Langley to learn and to bring what I could back in the way of knowledge. The kids and I flourished with the knowledge I gained in the various initiatives. But I also went to Goddard and learned a lot.

Close the Planetarium?

When they said they were going to close the Planetarium, students, wrote to me on facebook. What can we do? These students are parents now.. but we were concerned because we remembered the planetarium visits and the study of space. One student asked if the computer was a good exchange for a planetarium visit. I replied NO!!

We wrote to the Washington Post. The media picked up the story. I wrote to the school board, but the participatory culture gave us all a place to create support for the planetarium.

The stars will shine in the David M. Brown Planetarium next year, after the Arlington County School Board unanimously approved a new budget Thursday night.

The $442 million operating budget includes $114,000 to keep the planetarium open part time. The budget includes a part-time teaching position for the facility, which now has 2 1/2 positions for teaching and scheduling shows.

“The main thing is the doors will stay open,” School Board Chairman Sally Baird said.

School administrators recommended closing the aging planetarium this year, citing its outdated equipment and questionable educational value.

“Parents and community members rallied to save the facility, which was named for a graduate of Arlington’s Yorktown High School who was killed in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster. More than 900 people signed an online petition, and more than 3,000 joined an online Save the Arlington Planetarium Facebook page. Some residents formed a Friends of the Arlington Planetarium group, which has pledged to raise money to update the 1960s-era technology. ”

Here is the WashingtonPost story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042903360.html

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f you have been on the sidelines watching the discussions about Michelle Rhee and Superwoman status and the problems in DC Schools,
, here is a column that is food for thought.

Dr. Larry Cuban is the superindent who started my teaching career. He had an open door for teachers to come to talk to him.I used that door, and we were friends. He understood that teachers needed to be heard even way back them when he was the superintendent of Arlington, Virginia Schools. How refreshing to read this article.

Rhee’s biggest, and most costly, failing

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/rhees-biggest-failing-teacher.html

My guest is Stanford University Professor Larry Cuban. He is a former high school social studies teacher (14 years, 7 at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District) and district superintendent (7 years in Arlington, Virginia). He spent 20 years at Stanford and has been an emeritus professor since 2001.

By Larry Cuban
I do not know if Michelle Rhee will continue as D.C. schools chancellor even if Mayor Adrian Fenty, the man who brought her to the District, beats back his mayoral challengers in November. If he loses, Rhee will exit the parking lot of District offices on North Capitol Street for the last time.

Why?
Rhee has brought enormous energy, determination and rock-star glitz to a position usually inhabited by low-profile, dark-suited men who whisper in the ear of the mayor and confer quietly with key City Council members. Since August 2007, she has jolted the District’s Richter Scale with 7.0 temblors and repeated after shocks. That’s what the D.C. schools needed.

But in one crucial area, she has not succeeded. If Rhee leaves by the end of 2010, it won’t be because test scores have either dipped or slowly risen or a combination of both. If she leaves or stays for only a short time, it will be because she failed to crack the hardest nut that “change-agent” D.C. school chiefs face: connecting to teachers.

Ask big-city superintendents Alan Bersin (San Diego 1998-2005) and David Hornbeck (Philadelphia 1994-2000) about their nasty struggles with teacher unions and how that doomed their change-agentry even after they negotiated new contracts with teachers.

The proposed new contract between the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) and Chancellor Rhee is a series of practical compromises that trimmed back Rhee’s “no excuses” agenda and gave union members important concessions.

The proposed settlement removes from the upcoming mayoral race the testy public exchanges between the union and Rhee.

The proposed contract includes things the WTU wanted (e.g., salary increases for five years, no major overhaul of compensation policies or loss of seniority, professional development) and what Rhee wanted (a voluntary program of teacher pay-for-performance similar to Denver’s ProComp and more flexibility in getting rid of excess teachers).

Both sides can come out and say they “won.” But Rhee had already lost in the most important game in town: Working closely with 3,800 teachers to improve how and what they teach their students each day.

New tenure rules, new evaluation structures and the rhetoric of “no excuses” are important pieces of Rhee’s agenda for changing the D.C. schools. But the core of any sustained improvement in urban districts is the bond of trust between veteran teachers and their leader.

In nearly three years at the helm, Rhee has lost that trust, and that won’t change, even after the contract is approved by union teachers and the City Council, and even after many efforts to soothe teachers as a whole. How did this happen?

1. Trash talking about incompetent teachers. Of course, like bad doctors and lawyers, a small percentage — probably in the 5 percent range — do exist in the DC schools. But put-downs and thoughtless remarks amplified in the media have tarred the entire teacher corps. Rhee admitted as much in a Washington Post article (Feb. 9, 2009). “My thoughts about teachers have not always come through accurately. I do not blame teachers for the low achievement levels.”

2. A promising system of evaluating teachers (IMPACT) has gotten caught up in the conflict between the teachers’ union and Rhee. Chances of these new procedures recovering are slim. Chances of IMPACT being slowly sabotaged and disappearing when Rhee exits are high.

3. Rhee’s credibility as a former teacher (three years in Baltimore during the 1990s) and someone who has teachers’ ideals and interests at heart has been seriously damaged. Her attitudes and actions implicitly divide D.C. teachers into those who are younger, energetic, talented and share her “no excuses” beliefs and everyone else — mostly veteran teachers — who do not. Since newer teachers often exit after a few years, the veterans dominate school faculties and monopolize the organizational wisdom of the D.C. schools.

Why does a chancellor or any big-city superintendent have to connect to teachers? Take all the vision, symbols, energy and incentives at the top of the school organization, lay them out on the table, and then wrap them up into a tidy package — call it “leadership” — and mail it to 3,800 teachers. It won’t arrive.

While each of these traits is important, chancellors still face the political conundrum that with all the whirl, press releases, private meetings with the mayor and council members and public hearings, it is the teachers who teach lessons daily. Like most of us who work in organizations, they do need to be inspired, consoled, and prodded. They need to see that the interests of adults and student learning converge, not take separate paths.

Teachers need to believe that those at the top understand the situation they face each day and are supportive, even as they push and prod. But teachers are also jumpy, irascible, and feisty agents in their own right — a fact that too many superintendents come to understand too late.

Teachers can accept the prodding and shoving as long as they trust those at the top. Once the trust is lost, it is only a matter of settling the details of exiting that have to be worked out. And that is where the situation is now with Chancellor Rhee.

Larry Cuban is a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University. He has published op-ed pieces, scholarly articles and books on classroom teaching, history of school reform, how policy gets translated into practice, and teacher and student use of technologies in K-12 and college. You can read his school reform blog here. http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/

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Many people see teachers as the problem in education instead of thinking , why are the teachers not prepared?

What don’t they know?
How can we help teachers transform their learning?
What should we do to link teachers, resources, and initiatives that can help? The sheer numbers needed ..

Who Will Teach? Experience Matters

Read the full report: http://www.nctaf.org/WhoWillTeachExperienceMatters.htm

Between 2004 and 2008, 300,000 veteran teachers left the workforce for retirement. Baby Boom teachers who made lifelong commitments to education are retiring, and in many cases are taking their hard-earned wisdom with them.

See the Shifts in the Age of the National Teaching Workforce.

The solution for many is to close their eyes to the teachers in service in classrooms now. The people look to new teachers or to students. What makes SITE such a wonderful conference and place to learn is the ability to leap silos, ages and disciplines to change teaching and learning.

How do we shake the country of its indifference to educators and the need to change schools in a transformational way? How do we empower teachers?

Digital Generation?
To understand how important the change is for teachers in the classroom, is to be aware of the Digital Generation project. What are student practices in a participatory culture? What are students who have access to the technology doing? What are common practices?What might students who are not connected need to know about the possibilities of the participatory culture?

If you look at the various youth stories in the digital generation project, you understand why teachers need professional development and understanding of the digital world of students, to understand how to help the future workforce. The DOE technology plan that is proposed has these as components to make a difference.

Increase the 0pportunity for Learning

We can enable learning and give unprecedented access to high quality learning experiences for all students. We can create new ways of understanding what types of learning experiences work – when, how and with whom? Lucy Gray has it right in this columnl


Connect Teachers with Resources

Teachers need to be highly connected with data, experts, professional teams, and resources in order to provide personalized learning. Online environments can ensure that every student has access to effective teaching.

Connect Teachers with Partners

I have a lot of friends who know that we who are teachers , are one of the keys to the future of education in America as we touch the future. We also have businesses and industries that see the problem and who are looking for the way to help us. Diane Ravitz has sounded the alarm about the future of education Her information is a wake up call to help us see that change is needed now. Marc Prensky gives pointers in his book , Digital Natives. It’s a good read.

Teachers/ Researchers? Compatible? Some are!! Some aren’t!!

Many people involved in research have a problem in working with teachers and professors of education. Our scholarly communities have acculturated us to behave differently and to work independently of each other. Teachers however will remain stuck in the shallow end of teaching and learning without the help of those who are forging new ways of working when doing research and when teaching. We have an emergency in that we need to transform education and schools and we need all hands on deck.

Sometimes there is little patience for those in teaching and learning who ask why involve the teachers in classrooms now? I am lucky enough to have been a member of
Cilt.org, which was an amazing combination of people that broke the silos in education. We were researchers , teachers, professors in the colleges and universities and businesses. We had a focus. We had projects and we accomplished a lot. I have also been working with Scott Latbrop of Blue Waters.. running to catch up.

Reaching for Excellence

The Supercomputing Conference SC in Portland this year was so tempting that about 384 teachers applied, but there were not enough spaces for all of the applicants. The conference then created a teacher day to involve some of those who were not able to participate. So we look for new ways of working and connecting. There are so many teachers who need to know the new ways of working. So some of the experts came to SITE. Dr. Melanie Stegman of the Federation of American Scientist shared her game, Immune Attack with participants as you can see in the picture.
Here is the game, Immune Attack.

Pictures of engaged teachers sharing ideas and learning.

Do you know these projects?

Bugscope, and other projects are still new to many educators. The Bugscope project provides free interactive access to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) so that students anywhere in the world can explore the microscopic world of insects. This educational outreach program from the Beckman Institute’s Imaging Technology Group at the University of Illinois supports K-16 classrooms worldwide.

Bugscope allows teachers everywhere to provide students with the opportunity to become microscopists themselves—the kids propose experiments, explore insect specimens at high-magnification, and discuss what they see with our scientists—all from a regular web browser over a standard broadband internet connection.

http://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/

Then there is the Virtual Microscope

http://virtual.itg.uiuc.edu/.

Chickscope? What is Chickscope?
http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/

Using computers in the classroom with access to the Internet, students and teachers are able to access data generated from the latest scientific instruments. The goals include an increased understanding of the process of gathering scientific data and the opportunity to interact with scientists from several disciplines and students in other classrooms The access to unique scientific resources and expertise provides motivation for learning science and mathematics and stimulates interest in the scientific world.

Project learning, also known as project-based learning, is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups.
Project Based Learning Resources
Here is the industrial strength on the link there are all kinds of resources for your learning.
http://www.edutopia.org/project-learning . You will find lots of resources here.

For teachers who don’t know how to do project based learning there is a professional development initiative within the Edutopia resources.

http://www.edutopia.org/maine-project-learning-replication-tips

Bridging the Gap of Knowledge in Education

The challenge is that in the research and education community, cyberinfrastructure is both a continuous work-in-progress and a stable infrastructure driver for invention and innovation.

Do you know these resources?

Super Stars

Workforce Readiness
At higher levels there is workforce readiness.
*NSF ITEST Program

Dr. Joyce Mayln Smith( ITEST and Workforce Readiness) Joyce has workforce readiness as a project. Why reinvent the wheel when we can find resources here!
The ITEST resources are a valuable addition to our knowledge.

What about Marh?

* Dr. Bob Panoff,( Shodor.org) I really like the resources here for teachers , especially Interactivate. Go to the main webpage for it. Here is curriculum, and lots of it.
Interactivate This is a popular set of interactive online materials for math and science education – for grades 3 through 12.

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/

SUCCEED Curriculum
A collection of activities and lesson plans adapted from Shodor’s own workshops that incorporate computational elements into math and science explorations. http://www.shodor.org/succeed/curriculum/

Data to Discovery – San Diego Supercomputing Center

*Dr. Diane Baxter ,San Diego Supercomputing Center) with her excellent project has actually come to share the resources and works with outreach at SDSComputer Center. She has been quite generous in sharing with K-12, and even working with Native American projects such as the Internet to the Hogan to share the knowledge of the possibilities.

http://education.sdsc.edu/discoverdata/

Diane Baxter has wonderful things to share from this center.The Discover Data Portal a series of lessons , an experience of exploration and discovery. The mission of this portal is to provide a way for K-12 teachers and undergraduate professors to incorporate scientific data into their curricula. The process is to select data from existing online freely available scientific data archives, some of which may be a challenge for students to use without assistance, and build a series of lessons around them designed to guide K-12 and undergraduate students through beginning, intermediate, and advanced scientific tools.

*Dr. Alexander RePenning has a really, really serious and wonderful way to have us include games in education. Agent Sheets and scalable Game Design.

http://www.agentsheets.com/products/scalablegamedesign/index.html

* Dr. Danny Edelson National Geographic has numerous projects and programs to share. The recent work of the National Geographic on Water is one example but I also like the My Wonderful World Initiative.http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/. When I met Danny recently ,he was excited as I am about the possibilities of change in education. Teachers should take a look at the geographic alliances. That’s a group of people who come together in states who teach, share and learn geography together. There is also an international group. Resources here.

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The JASON Project connects students with great explorers and great events to inspire and motivate them to learn science.Here is what it offers cutting-edge research from NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Geographic Society and other leading organizations.
It allow leading scientists to work side by side with JASON students.
Curriculum?
The Jason project challenges students to apply their knowledge to the real-world scenarios scientists face every day.

This is just the beginning of wonderful resources that you can use in helping teachers to become technofluent.

Kicking it up a notch. Dr. Henry Neeman,

What in the world is Supercomputing?),What the heck is supercomputing? Who uses supercomputing, how,and why? How does supercomputing work? What does the explosive growth of computing power mean for students, faculty and professionals? How can you use your graphics card to turn your laptop into a supercomputer? Henry can teach using any method.

Dr. Neeman can teach in lots of e-learning styles. Henry Neeman has many ways to teach a lesson. So you will know that he is a fun guy. He has patience. He also knows that some people don’t have broadband. He has many ways to teach. take a look at his home page. http://hneeman.oscer.ou.edu/ The thing about Henry is that he can translate what he does into words that make you understand!! He uses whatever kind of media he can to share the message. He is a researcher, but he speaks to teachers in their language. He is awesome.

Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Emaginos.com

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