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HISTORY: JFK’S DESK GOES INTERACTIVE
Take a seat at JFK’s virtual desk and explore his life and times at this JFK Library exhibit. Click on the scrimshaw icon (Cape Cod sailing), a coconut (his WWII service), a campaign button (his run for the presidency), and several family photo albums. Students can also hear JFK on phone conversations and secret tapes, speaking about the Cuban missile crisis, civil rights and more. There’s a guide for teachers in grades 4-12 and the option to create your own exhibit using an interactive timeline. Camelot in cyberspace.
A TWEEN-FRIENDLY CLASSROOM DESIGN
MiddleWeb friend Heather Wolpert-Gawron is home with a new son (Samwise; no kidding) and feeling the excitement of seeing her first middle grades book appear in print. There’s a sample chapter available from her publisher of particular interest to teachers new to middle school: "Tips for Creating a Tween-Centric Classroom Environment." It comes complete with a diagram of HWG’s own classroom layout. Just visit her publisher’s page at the link above and click "PDF sample chapters" under the image of her book cover. The book, BTW, is titled Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers.
SCIENCE: HOW CATS LAP
Ever wonder how your cat makes all that milk disappear? Students will see how sophisticated science works, even on down-to-earth topics, in this NYT report on research of Felis catus’s lapping habits. Includes a video interview with MIT engineers who describe "the biomechanics of feline water uptake." Also see this MIT press release for other interesting details, including a robot cat tongue.
SPECIAL OLYMPICS TARGETS BULLYING
This NASSP report describes a new website developed by the Special Olympics to involve students in rejecting bullying. It’s built around a new service learning curriculum, "Get Into It," that promotes inclusive sports and youth leadership to teach the importance of acceptance and respect. You’ll find standards based lessons and ideas for student-led projects. Here’s the direct link to Get Into It.
ENGLISH/LA: CHRACTERIZATION MADE EASY
Middle school teacher Mary Blow has devised a clever acronym to help students recall the key elements of characterization. At the Scholastic Teacher blog, she introduces WALTeR, complete with a cartoon Walter to help kids remember Words, Actions, Looks, Thoughts and Response. Blow includes class activities and lots of reproducibles from a variety of sources. Also see her helpful how-to discussion of MS literature circles.
MATH BLOG: LOVE OF LEARNING
Kristi Grande’s blog for middle grades math teachers reveals her love of the subject. Her posts explore teaching strategies, activities, and technology applications from a practical classroom perspective. "All of the teaching strategies and activities reflect current research, best practices, and brain-based learning principles," she says. We think you’ll like it, and you can always share your own favorite resources in the comments.
ING OFFERS CLASSROOM GRANTS
K-12 educators in the United States have until April 30 to submit applications to win one of the 100 annual $2,000 grants for innovative classroom projects. ING, the Amsterdam based financial services company, will also present three grand prizes ranging from $5,000 to $25,000. Since 1995 ING has awarded nearly $3.5 million to educators and their schools through its Unsung Heroes program in the US. The grant website lists former winners along with descriptions of their projects.
STUDENTS CAN WRITE ABOUT SCIENCE
Wow. Middle grades teacher Marsha Ratzel and her science students are blogging about science ideas, and they've gathering nearly 200 comments so far. At Ratzel's "Reflections of a Techie" blog you can track her methods and her progress, and find out what it takes to be able to say: "Students can and do write well about science."
GRADING: YOU KNOW YOU WANT SOME TIPS
One thing I learned long ago - teachers like to talk about grading. MiddleWeb friend Heather Wolpert-Gawron, known to her blog fans as the TweenTeacher, has a new book coming out next month: "Tween Crayons and Curfews - Tips for Middle School Teachers." This excerpt posted at her Edutopia blog shares some ideas about grading and student feedback, drawn from her own classroom in San Gabriel CA. Share #1 - "How does a new or veteran teacher handle the hours of grading that can amount to a second full-time job?"
TEACHERS WHO COACH TEACHERS
We know some of our subscribers have been thrust into roles as instructional coaches and curriculum leaders. It's all part of the new wave of teacher leadership sweeping the country. That's a very good thing - but quite often the new coach gets little clear direction about how to best accomplish this formidable professional challenge. In a recent (and very popular) Education Week Teacher article, Oakland CA middle grades coach Elena Aguilar shared advice from her own coaching practice. Call it the beginnings of "the manual that should have been in the box."
HOW THE iPAD WANTS TO BE USED
A lot of schools are envisaging the Apple iPad "in the roles that PCs formerly occupied," says Scottish teacher and tech coach Fraser Speirs. The laptop trolley becomes an iPad trolley. The checkout computers become the checkout tablets. But that's not how the iPad is designed, he says, and "the iPad is an extremely uncomfortable fit for those roles defined in an earlier era." But it can be a hugely helpful learning tool in the digital era, as Speirs is learning in a schoolwide experiment that has garnered worldwide attention. See what the ASCD Inservice blog had to say.
HISTORY VIDEOS THAT WON'T GET BLOCKED (MAYBE)
Resource guru Larry Ferlazzo's collection of websites that offer news and history videos is his best attempt to share excellent, no-cost collections "that won't get blocked by school district content filters." There's no guarantee, of course. As he says, there is often no rhyme or reason. But in his CA district they can be accessed, and here's hoping they work for you. One of his favorites is MSNBC, which now also offers transcripts and captions on every video, which Larry notes are very useful with ELL students.
MAKING SPEECHES IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
Blogger and middle grades English teacher Dina Stasser has her first speech project underway. In addition to her interesting reflection on why it took four years to get it going (hint: not tested in NY), she shares the fruits of a several-hour internet search for good (and otherwise useful) examples of student speech-making.
IF I SAY ASSESSMENT, WILL YOU SKIP THIS?
Smile. As math teacher Shawn Cornally says in this resources-oriented post at Edutopia, the word "assessment" has been a soft synonym for "accountability" long enough to make many teachers word-shy. But Cornally is among a growing number of teachers who have begun "a quest to discover a way to make the seemingly adversarial task of assessment turn into a rich and powerful tool for learning." He points readers to several bloggers (including one focused exclusively on middle school) who may spark more interest in the art and science of measuring what your students are learning, while they are learning it.
CHEMISTRY NOW
Middle grades science teachers will want to peruse the growing chemistry-related offerings at the NBC Learn website, where they'll discover resources suitable for teaching tweens. You'll find short videos, charts, related news stories and lesson plans, all with the aim to connect science topics to everyday life. Cheeseburgers, for example. There will be a new topic posted each week of the school year. This page shows resources for the Chemistry of Water, but you can click on the "Chemistry Now" tab to see everything that's available so far and what's to come.
DO-IT-YOURSELF SOCRATIC SEMINARS
You can get young minds cogitating about philosophy and other deep subjects with Angela Bunyi's Top Teaching blog entry:"Higher Order Comprehension: The Power of Socratic Seminar." With her minute-by-minute guidelines and suggestions for successful student-led discussion, Bunyi provides all you need to get started, including a great source for "discussable" videos complete with transcripts. All in 55 minutes or less.
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