MiddleWeb Resources (451)
MiddleWeb published 451 issues of our weekly/biweekly resources newsletter from 1998 to 2012, before we began our MiddleWeb SmartBrief partnership. We’re posting the content of some of our most recent issues here at our new website. We don’t want to waste good stuff!
MiddleWeb’s Of Particular Interest
Teach Writers, Not Writing
How can you approach writing conferences in ways that build better writers? Teacher-author Ruth Ayres, who blogs at Two Writing Teachers, recommends a two-step process that concentrates on a single teaching point and “gets to the heart of the writer” for each conference. Advice: stay with the writer’s original work whenever possible – and don’t expect to create a perfect conference each time out.
Algebra: How Much at What Age?
Students’ understanding of algebra seems to be more about being prepared than being a certain age. But there’s still disagreement about when to introduce algebra into the curriculum. Ed Week writer Sarah Sparks concentrates on the lamentable results of pushing all eighth graders into algebra. Some students actually lose ground. The Harvard Education Letter reports similar findings but offers research-based strategies to build algebraic thinking into math taught to elementary students. WNET/13 has posted Get the Math, a series of free videos and web interactives to show adolescents that algebra has real world applications. “Real” as in fashion, music, and more.
Students & the Outdoors: A Natural
Over the past nine months middle school teacher Kelli Bivens has found a way to bring her black and brown students together: lead them into the woods near Athens, GA to learn about Nature and build bonds while blazing a trail. Across the continent, L.A. County students at Leo Politi Elementary just walk out the school door to encounter native plants and animals. A federal grant has replaced a section of the urban school’s concrete yard with a 5,000 square foot garden. Science test scores are up six-fold after 3 years as kids observe and write about the world outside their windows. Want a game plan for surveying the flora and fauna in your school’s neighborhood? Visit the NYT Learning Network for a detailed lesson plan. Kids will pick up math skills along the way.
Kids Learn to Search, from Google
Whether your classroom is filled with beginning searchers or savvy digital natives, Google’s recently unveiled website, Search Education, can help. The site’s lesson plans are available at three levels of difficulty. Google also provides an archive of training videos for teachers. You can apply some of the tips to other search engines, too. If you want to avoid having your kids develop hard-to-erase online footprints, try some of the search engines described at the How-To Geek site. Duck Duck Go leads the list. AND: MindShift suggests students sharpen their searches by predicting results.
Principal Evaluation: Beyond Test Scores
Principal evaluation needs to catch up with the reality school leaders face today. That’s one finding of “The Ripple Effect,” a recent report from the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality and the American Institutes for Research. The report outlines “a framework for understanding principal effectiveness that includes principals’ practice, direct effects on schools and teachers, and indirect effects on instruction and learning.”
Anthony Cody’s Take on CCSS
What questions come to mind when you think of the Common Core standards? Ed Week blogger and high-stakes assessment critic Anthony Cody has assembled lots of questions about CCSS to point out some potentially devastating results that could follow implementation. Cody, a recently retired middle school science teacher/coach, finds the premise for instituting more rigorous standards suspect. He references a study on the economic inequality he believes is at the root of much poor performance.
Enjoy the Year-End Scramble
The end is near: what’s an educator to do? Knowing teachers want a strong finish, middle grades teacher Cossondra George describes how to involve students in end-of-year evaluations of their classroom experience. She also describes the elements of a successful in-class awards ceremony. Over at Scholastic, you’ll find some fun end-of-school ideas from teachers, including a “Teach the Teacher” Day. Another Scholastic article has lots of year-end suggestions for younger students (several might be adapted for older kids, too). Our favorites: paper ‘bricks’ emblazoned with students’ famous last words for a wall to welcome new students next fall — and a class timeline with high points remembered by kids. How to maintain teacher energy amid end-of-year frenzy? At her Edutopia blog, teacher-coach Elena Aguilar offers survival tips.
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MiddleWeb’s Quick Links
Didn’t find quite what you need? Here’s a quick look at some other resources of interest.
• Any summer PD plans? 12 teachers will be guiding underwater robots off the GA coast.
• Administrators and teachers, new or not, will find helpful suggestions in Educational Leadership’s new-teacher issue.
• Flipped classroom proponents respond to concerns. And a proposal to flip Bloom’s Taxonomy gets a lot of attention.
• Brief animations can help kids grasp the space/time continuum.
• Show students how to cite a tweet, from media specialist Julie Greller.
