Impacting the lives of those in need this season

As the holidays approach, here are some ideas on donating to those in need:

-Work with a local school or teachers to purchase gifts for children who will not receive any presents
-Toys for Tots - gifts go to children in need in the U.S.
-Operation Christmas Child- boxes go to international locations
-Kiva- loan money to people to help them start businesses and change their lives
-Partner with an international organization to sponsor a child, here’s a school in Kenya where I have served.
-Give a sheep to an international family in need

Happy Holidays!

Example of 1:1 laptop school

I ended my trip to Memphis this morning with a tour of Lusanne Collegiate School, a K-12 independent school that has a 1:1 laptop program in Grades 5 thru 12. Each student has their own personal laptop that is used throughout the school day and at home for academic purposes.

We were able to see a high school science class where students used computer probeware to collect the air pressure during a science experiment. Other examples I saw included using Audacity for students to record themselves speaking Spanish for an exam grade, and students examining web-based artifacts for their Social Studies to deepen their understanding.

Next July, Lusanne will be hosting their annual Laptop Institute showcasing ways to integrate technology in K-12 classrooms. Information is here.

Integrating Technology in Elementary Math Classrooms

At the Mid-south Technology Conference I will be facilitating a conversation on Thursday afternoon about integrating technology in Elementary Math classrooms.

Here are some materials from my presentation:

Links and resources

John Seely Brown- learning by “remixing” or “recreating” knowledge

Theorist John Seely Brown provided the afternoon keynote address at the Mid-South Technology Conference. Citing numerous Web 2.0 technologies- blogs, wikis, etc.- and other technologies- digital video, digital images, social networking, Brown discussed the need to continue our paradigm shift to learning as a form of participating in communities.

Brown cited K-12 students’ interest in ‘remixing’ or ‘recreating’ knowledge as a venue for teachers to further reach learners. He supported the idea of providing opportunities for students to ‘remix’ or ‘create’ knowledge to support learning.

Interesting ideas by JSB.

Planning District-Wide Technology Professional Development

At the Mid-south Technology Conference, Brenda McCombs, Clif Mims, the AL Brown High School Science Dept. shared our story of the IMPACT technology grant in Kannapolis City Schools.

Planning District-Wide Technology Professional Development

Standardized test preparation with a standards-based mathematics curricula

Reprinted from http://elemath.pbworks.com/EoG-Preparation

EoG Preparation
Drew Polly (drewpolly@gmail.com)

Teachers, Math Facilitators (Coaches), and Administrators-

As i have visited a number of grade level meetings and talked with teachers in North Carolina, one of the concerns using a standards-based curriculum like Investigations, Trailblazers and Expressions is uncertainty about how these curricula prepare students for End-of-Grade tests.

 

If you are teaching with a standards-based curricula, the best strategy for EoG prep is to teach the curriculum well, develop students’ conceptual understanding and where there are gaps in the standards use standards-based approaches to teach those concepts. Consistency is the most essential part of teaching with this curricula. Students in Grades 3-5 do need exposure to EoG-type items. Just be very selective on how you spend your money and your students’ time.

A few resources are definitely useful:

1) DPI has released test items freely available on their <a href=”http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/accountability/testing/eog/math/” target=”_blank”>website</a>.

Many schools are using these items, changing the numbers to create a pool of EoG items. These can be used intermittently as problem of the day, as homework problems, or occasionally during lessons. Do not over-prep your students to the point where students’ work becomes largely test prep and not guided discovery.

2) DPI’s indicators are also available <a href=”http://mathlearnnc.sharpschool.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=4507283&pageId=5051238″ target=”_blank”>online</a>. These indicators provide ample opportunity for rigorous tasks that 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students will be exposed to in May.

3) Curriculum-based materials- Investigations has ExamView, published by Pearson, and the other curricula have their own North Carolina-tweaked test prep materials. Be careful to check for alignment and rigor before using them.

4) Commercial items

a) <a href=”http://classscape.ncsu.edu/” target=”_blank”>ClassScape</a>- the only commercial product developed in North Carolina has EoG-like items that align to the standards and a decent level of rigor.

b) <a href=”http://www.curriculumassociates.com/products/detail.asp?title=TRMath” target=”_blank”>Curriculum Associates</a>- this material is not North Carolina specific, but has a high level of rigor. Anecdotally, students who do well on these practice tests and materials do well on the End-of-Grade test

c) EoG Coach- the level of rigor is not as high as ClassScape or Curriculum Associates. Anecdotally, there have been cases of false-positives, students do well on these materials but do not do well on the EoG test.

d) SuccessMaker, Study Island and CCC- All of these are programs that can be accurately lumped into the direct intervention category. These programs are all based on the idea that students need repetitive practice and lots of repetition to learn the concepts. These programs may lead to slight increases in test scores, but have a long-term detriment to students’ conceptual understanding, which harms them in later grades.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Drew
drewpolly@gmail.com

Pay for performance scale coming to Charlotte

In his State of CMS Schools Speech, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Superintendent Dr. Peter Gorman laid out a plan to pay teachers for performance rather than years experience and advanced degrees.

This comes as a result of a few studies, mainly the Brookings Institute work that effective teachers in the top quartile of their colleagues could close the achievement gap between below and on grade level children, regardless of ethnicity.

Under this new system teachers that get move their students more than one year of growth during 1 academic year would make more money than their colleagues who don’t make as much growth. Gorman claims it won’t happen without teacher buy-in.

thoughts?

Give them an opportunity…

This morning at the North Carolina Council for Teachers of Mathematics conference, Kathy Richardson provided a PK-2 keynote address about the importance of understanding children’s development of number sense. She talked about her notion of critical phases of learning, i which learners need experiences and time to process and think about their development.

In many of her examples, Richardson discussed students’ understanding of decomposing two-digit numbers into tens and ones and the need for students to see tens as discrete units.

An example would be the idea that the task 8+6, students need to be able to think about the idea that if you have 8, 2 more gets to 10 and you have 1 ten and 4 ones left over, which is 14. Students without this concept, tend to show issues when adding larger numbers.

Students must have an opportunity to work in discovery-oriented learning environments and have time to process the concepts that they are learning.

Assessment…rubrics

In the midst of working with some school districts on creating some rubrics for high-level mathematical tasks. We’ve posted some online using the elementary mathematics Investigations curriculum. Would love some feedback.

Audio Boo

I was asked to do a brief interview with my friend and colleague Dr. Clif Mims. We used Audioboo an app on the iPhone 3GS that will audio record and instantaneously post it online.

Enjoy the interview…