How data supports positive behavior

During yesterday's much-anticipated roll out the students had time to play around with Khan Academy's platform and interact with the different features. Some students had already used the site before and were drawn to some of the later modules that had been marked for review; while others were excited that they could successfully complete the first addition module with ease. This experience of success is something that many of these students may not recognize in a math class, and is a helpful motivator.

After the students had time to explore we reined in their attention so as to demonstrate some of the data tracking features. As described earlier this instigated much excitement, many exclamations, and the student's undivided attention. As a former teacher I was pleasantly surprised. The demo came to a close, I closed the projector window and turned the classes attention to Ruth who began to transition the class. I noticed that all of a sudden the activity monitor on my screen began to jump as a student was fervently answering math problems. I stopped the class, quickly opened the projector window and asked the class who was not paying attention to the teacher. One of the more verbal students looked up from his screen with a giant grin and the class broke into laughter. He apologized to Ruth and exclaimed that he thought it was really cool that we could see what he was doing. I laughed as well and told him that I was pumped I had to redirect him away from doing classwork instead of being of task.

Khan Academy, if used strategically and with intent, is not only a mechanism for instruction but is also a tool for dealing with one of the biggest hurdles in education, classroom management

Using Khan Academy in the classroom

In the spring I trained all of the Learning Specialist in our network on Khan Academy. They used it a remedial tool for students who struggle in math and as a way to provide extra support and practice, as a skill builder. For summer school we have decided to launch a prototyping of blended learning using google's new Chromebooks. We are in the beginning stages, the students in both the control and experimental groups are taking the pre-test. The control group is receiving traditional Algebra I while the experimental group is receiving just that, an experiment in how blending the traditional role of the teacher with that of a coach can change outcomes for students. To follow the project check out

http://blendmylearning.com/

and

http://theteachercafe.blogspot.com/

Helpful tool for Math lessons

I am sitting in class and a group of students just presented this simulation to the group. I am so pumped by how helpful this representation will be for students who struggle with graphing equations, especially Algebra II, that I have to post it immediately


Hope you like it!!

Some Interesting Tech Tools

Over the past few months I have been collecting and archiving tech tools that I have found on a variety of websites, that I think would be useful to use with the students I work with. Many of these are tools that help to support differentiation in the classroom, and increase access for students who have learning differences.
This website is a neat tool for teaching money skills. Working in Special Education we are mandated to ensure that our students are prepared to transition from high school to post-secondary activities. This is a great tool for transition planning.
Students are always stating that they do not want to do things that they find difficult. How often have you heard the line "why do I have to learn stupid Algebra? I won't use it in my life anyways"?
Well here is a website that helps teach kids exactly how they will use math in their daily lives.
This tool is an interactive time line to support history instruction.
This tool allows students to create an account where they can upload clips of audio information that they record on a variety of devices. For example, a student who has auditory processing deficits can use his/her phone to capture important points in the lecture, and then upload it so that they can use it later.
This tool is designed to be used in trigonometry but I feel like it can be a useful tool for demonstrating certain core concepts in geometry as well, and provides a good visual at the same time.
I trust that these tools will be interesting and useful. I apologize for not providing sample lessons in this post. What can I say, school is getting intense. My midterms are coming up quickly.

Differentiation to support Critical Thinking

This post is slightly different than most other posts because it is more like a lesson. This is a short Professional Development opportunity that I put together for teachers. Following the steps below one could easily use this as a self-guided lesson. I hope that the tools collected here are useful and the teachers of all subjects can find ways to incorporate them into their curriculum design and instructional practices.

Title of Session:

Tools to differentiate for students building Critical Thinking skills

Tech Skill You Will Teach:

In this session you will learn about free web resources that can be used to differentiate classroom activities for students with a variety of learning challenges.

Readability

• Intro: Why differentiate, the importance of reaching all students, possible barriers to learning.

• Find text online, copy and paste it into word document.

• Go to Tools, then Spelling and Grammar, then options, then check Readability Statistic.

The end output should give you Flesh-Kincaid grade level.
Video of how to use Spelling and Grammar tool for checking readability statistic

Summarizing and Synthesizing tool to help teach synthesis and to address different reading levels in the classroom

• Introduce Summarity
  

• Participants try with a piece of text that they use in their class.

Graphic Organizers help students structure thinking and highlight points of importance.

• IntroduceBubbl Us

• Participants create visuals for the summarized text they previously created using summarity.

• Bonus activity (time permitting) check out VoiceThread

Here is an example of a final product, created in VoiceThread.

• Bonus (for math / science folks) check out Wolfram Alpha

Measurable Outcomes:

Find tool to measure readability

Create a leveled text

Create a graphic organizer

I hope that this workshop taught you something new.

The Abstinence-Only Sex Ed. program that I am paying for

I do not usually feel the need to comment on the politics of this country. I hid safely behind my dual citizenship, claiming Canada with pride and a hint of condecention. HOwever, over coffee this morning I was accosted by the latest headline in Education Weekly. Apparently with the passage of the much discussed health care reform bill, was the renewal of Title V, some legal-eeze that mandates Abstinence-Only Sex Education for our youngsters. The article describes that this program was first signed into law under Clinton more than ten years ago. It also states that this program will continue to recieve over $250 million in funding over the next how ever many years.

The article goes on to delineate the type of abstinence program that would qualify, because clearly not every abstinence program is doing it right. There are eight tenents that a program is measured against, the first of which is "Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children". Which makes me reflect about my own relationship. I guess since I do not have the legal right to marry, I should not be engaging in sexual activity. I guess I am missing out on what is described as the "social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity," and I am clearly putting myself at risk because "sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects".

Apparently there has been one lone study in the past ten years that has shown scientifically based evidence of the success of an Abstinence-Only education program. One. I wonder who funded that study? I wonder who performed the data analysis? I wonder?

Where am I? is it really 2010 or did I wake up in the middle ages? I understand that the government needs to find methods for controlling to population, this is not new. But what happened to the glorious idea, seperation of church and state, upon which this country was founded (I at least know that). People want to have sex, we always have we always will, it is out of our control regardless of our religious beliefs. I think history has taught us that. Besides which with shows like 'pregnant and 16' and the multitude of visual media that sell using sex, we probably want to have sex more now than we did 100 years ago. Perhaps we should study that?

First Special Education iphone application

Well ladies and gentleman, the wait is over. We finally have an iphone app that helps us prepare for our IEP meetings. Watch this!!