She's the principal of a school where the kids are struggling to make ends meet. Sherrie Gahn has dedicated herself to making sure her students get what they need to stay in school, whatever it takes. Watch her amazing story here.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
rEDesign: University of Michigan Students Campaign For Education Redesign On Twitter
While lawmakers seek to make sweeping changes to public education at the national and state levels, some University of Michigan students are looking to reshape K-12 education from the bottom up.
Campus group rEDesign seeks input from students on how best to fix a broken system in which a wide achievement gap remains, and students -- both privileged and underserved -- struggle to be succeed academically and be globally competitive.
"The only demographic who haven't been engaged to systemically transform the education system is young people," the group writes on DoSomething.org.
In a new campaign, rEDesign wants college students to submit ideas on how best to redesign public education in the U.S. (Tweet your ideas with #rEDesignMyEdu @umichrEDesign and@HuffPostEdu.).
"College students stand at this powerful intersection, where we're the most recent products of the K-12 system, so we still identify with our roles as students, and our knowledge of the system -- at least from a student's perspective -- is still relatively accurate," Libby Ashton, founder and president of rEDesign, says in the campaign video. "Watch us dream, watch us try, and if history is any indicator at all, watch us succeed -- at least sometimes -- in designing avenues by with schools and the students they serve receive the resources they need to be successful."
rEDesign isn't the first college-level organization of its kind. Three years ago, Catharine Bellinger and Alexis Morin founded non-profit Students for Education Reform at Princeton University, focused on supporting policies the students believe will help close the achievement gap.
As membership and interest grew, chapters sprouted across the country, and the two left Princeton before finishing their senior year to focus full-time on taking SFER to schools nationwide.
So as nearly half of America's public schoolsfailed to meet federal achievement standards this year, states across the country are seeking No Child Left Behind waivers to circumvent what has been called a "broken" and "defective" law.
The waivers aim to give states more flexibility in creating curriculum and standards at the local level -- offering them a chance to improve their individual education systems that are catered to the needs of their localities.
Still, the policy-related reform efforts in government focus on top-down, rigid and methodical assessments and frameworks. When few schools offer the arts as individual courses and 65 percent of high school students don't have access to AP classes in core subjects, what does Michigan's rEDesign want, and what ideas do they have to reverse that trend?
Watch the video to find out, and don't forget to tweet your own ideas with #rEDesignMyEdu@umichrEDesign and @HuffPostEdu.
Friday, December 9, 2011
If so much emphasis is put on standardize tests, shouldn't we look at the content they're testing?
This is a fascinating article about a Florida School Board member who decided to take the regents exams and his findings. Maybe it's time to require all of our board members to take the regents exams...
School Board Member Who Took State High School Exam: Tests Lack Accountability
School Board Member Who Took State High School Exam: Tests Lack Accountability
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Project Based Learning
http://www.bie.org/
We’re really looking forward to hearing how you use PBL and the Projects feature in your classrooms. We’re so excited, in fact, that we rounded up a few resources from around the web to help you out:
Resources for Project-Based Learning
Last month we released Projects for all our education wikis. Our intention was to give you a better tool for group work, but, as many of you have pointed out, they’re also great for project-based learning.
Project-based learning, or PBL, grew out of early 20th century education reform, like the works of John Dewey. It generally involves directed, open-ended questions, real-life problem solving, and presentation to an authentic audience. And, of course, it’s a great way for students to build collaboration and 21st-century skills while mastering content.
We’re really looking forward to hearing how you use PBL and the Projects feature in your classrooms. We’re so excited, in fact, that we rounded up a few resources from around the web to help you out:- The Buck Institute for Education is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to 21st-century learning skills, with a focus on PBL. Their site is full of useful resources, research, and teaching materials.
- The George Lucas Educational Foundations’ Edutopia site has videos and real-life examples around PBL.
- PBL-Online is an online laboratory for developing and sharing PBL resources and project ideas.
- This article from Scholastic discusses “The Power of Project-Based Learning.”
- You can also find more PBL Web sites and lesson plans at LearningReviews.
In The Child and the Curriculum, John Dewey observed that, “The logically formulated material of a science or branch of learning, of a study, is no substitute for the having of individual experiences.” We can’t wait to hear what those experiences look like in your classrooms.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Time to Bring Girl Talk to Rondout Valley?
It's a Girl Thing: How One Young Woman Is Taking a Stand Against Bullying
Haley Kilpatrick just wanted to help her little sister get through middle school without bullying or self-esteem issues. Now, through the organization she started at age 15, she's changed the lives of 35,000 girls — and counting.
Haley Kilpatrick didn’t set out to change the world. But as the founder and executive director of Girl Talk, an international mentoring program for middle school girls, she’s on track to do just that.
The 24-year-old Albany, Ga., native was a high school sophomore when she started Girl Talk in 2002 as a way to help her younger sister through middle school. The idea was born out of Kilpatrick’s own junior high experience, which she says was, to put it mildly, less than perfect. “I became a diminished version of myself,” Kilpatrick recalls in the next episode of Everyday Health, airing Oct. 15 or 16 on your local ABC station. “I was eating lunch in the bathroom, not really feeling included, and just in general questioning who I was and what I stood for.”
Kilpatrick felt lost. “I didn’t have an older sister. And I didn’t have someone who I felt I could go home to and talk with about what I was going through,” she says.
Wanting to prevent her younger sister from ever feeling the same way, Kilpatrick came up with the idea to have high school girls like herself mentor middle school girls like her sister. She knew other people in her grade had struggled in middle school, too, and she figured the younger girls could benefit from their experiences and advice. But she never predicted how much. “I thought five or six people would come to that first meeting,” she says. Instead, 80 percent of the middle school girls showed up.
Girl Talk Gets Real
Kilpatrick may have started out just wanting to help her sister, but her mission now is much larger. Today, Girl Talk reaches 35,000 girls in 43 states and four countries, including Canada and Australia. And in its founder’s eyes, it’s just getting started. “There are 11.6 million middle school girls in the U.S. alone who are in need of a positive mentor,” she says. “So 35,000 girls may seem like a lot, but it’s a drop in the bucket for me.”
The need for a place where girls can go to be heard is greater than ever before, she adds. “Technology has grown faster in the past 10 years than it ever has in our history, and it’s a key part of the problem. We've gone from this issue of bullying to cyberbullying. Girls are able to anonymously hurt and antagonize one another.”
“Girls bully in different ways than boys,” explains Kara Friedman, MS, a licensed therapist and a member of Girl Talk’s advisory board. “They’ll do it in a way that causes other girls to feel emotionally excluded.”
According to a 2009 survey, nearly 30 percent of middle school girls have been bullied in some way. And that can have serious consequences. One national study found that 75 percent of girls with self-esteem issues struggle with eating disorders or harmful behaviors like cutting, smoking, or drinking.
“Girl bullying is a little more insidious than, say, punching someone in the face — but it can be just as damaging, if not more so,” says Everyday Health medical director Mallika Marshall, MD, a pediatrician and internist with the Massachusetts General Hospital Chelsea Urgent Care Clinic. Middle school girls, in particular, she adds, may feel the effects more intensely than others.
“These are kids who are 11 to 15 years old. They’re often going to a new school, they’re being placed under greater academic demand, they have new teachers, and they’re sort of trying to establish their independence from their parents, so they’re relying a lot more on their peers for social acceptance. Add to that the fact that their bodies are changing because they’re going through puberty — so they’re self-conscious about everything anyway — and it really is a recipe for disaster.” (Read more from Dr. Marshall about why bullying is worse than ever — and how parents can help.)
Research supports Dr. Marshall’s concerns. One report, sponsored by Dove, found that 7 in 10 girls think they aren’t good enough or don’t measure up in some way. And almost half of 12- to 13-year-olds were unhappy with their looks.
Girl Talk makes a point to address those issues by teaching girls to celebrate their differences and the differences of their peers — some of whom are people they might never interact with otherwise. “We have girls who are athletic, we have cheerleaders, we have girls on the drama team, and we have girls who don't participate in anything after school,” Kilpatrick says. “No matter what your socioeconomic status is or where you come from, Girl Talk is relevant because there's not one specific type of middle school girl who has it the hardest.
“Ultimately, even the girls who contribute to the problem are going through the same thing. So we bring them all together,” she adds. “We really just encourage them to think before they speak, think before they post, and treat each other the way they want to be treated.”
Girl Talk girls and their mentors (called “leaders”) meet in adult-supervised weekly sessions to talk about specific topics, or “lessons,” which cover everything from cyberbullying to underage drinking. At each session, the girls discuss the issue, share personal stories, and make a pledge to incorporate what they learned. They also have the option to participate in events like Project Inside Out, a week-long summer camp with guest speakers and community service projects.
How Girl Talk Changes Lives
The bonding experience extends way beyond official Girl Talk meetings. “The relationships that are formed are life-changing,” Kilpatrick says. “They become friendships. They become family.” She recalls one very shy girl who started out at Girl Talk in 2009 sitting by herself at lunch and avoiding the other participants. “The next day, I saw three girls introduce themselves and sit next to her,” Kilpatrick says. “By the end of the week, she was singing and dancing and opening up about her experiences — and now she’s giving back as a counselor for Girl Talk!”
In fact, 83 percent of the middle school girls who participate in Girl Talk go on to become Girl Talk leaders.
“Girl Talk has really inspired me and changed me as a person, because I used to be insecure about myself,” says Natalie, a third-year Girl Talk leader. “Being able to help these girls understand that they’re good people has helped me realize that I’m a good person, too.”
“Girl Talk has prepared me for a life of giving and a life of leadership and a life of positive change,” adds Megan, another Girl Talk leader, who’s planning to start her own chapter at the middle school in Athens-Clarke County, where she’ll be attending college. “It's all about positive change and telling girls how beautiful and perfect and amazing they are. And that’s something I wish I’d had growing up. It's really something that every single girl in America and beyond could benefit from.”
To find out more about Girl Talk, tune in to Everyday Health, hosted by Laila Ali, on October 15 or 16 on your local ABC station.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
TEDYouth
Are you a fan of the TED talks? The first ever TED event for young people will be held on Saturday, November 19th from 1-5pm at the Times Center. Attendance is free for 300 students in the New York area. The subjects for this “TEDYouth” event include: Math in real life, Creativity in action, Mindshifting stories, Questions people don’t have the answer to, How and why everyday objects work (like the physics of wearing heels). Speakers so far include David Gallo, Bob Full (an MIT technologist), Adam Savage from Myth Busters, Brad Meltzer from the History channel show Decoded, and many more.
For more info check out: http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/1836
For more info check out: http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/1836
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
SCIENCE EXPO 2011
Approximately 250 people attended the expo. As one attendee commented, "Science is alive in our district!" And someone else added, "There was a fantastic variety of well-done projects...it’s great to see student excitement for learning."
THE BUBBLE SHOW
The Bubble Show stole the show. Jeff Boyer, science entertainer, taught while he totally captivated his audi- ence. We learned why bub- bles are different colors, what holds them together, and how they interact with wet medi- ums. But mostly, we basked in the magic of bubbles.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EXPO...
-- A tinker-toy trebuchet set up to discover if a light or heavy ball would go further (Kindergarten.)
-- A mural of the planets (1st grade.) A working lemon battery (2nd grade.)
-- An experiment examining if plants grow differently when ex- posed to classical or rock music (3rd grade.)
-- Experiments with different growth mediums for plants (4th grade.)
-- An experiment on the effects of root systems and leaf layers on erosion (6th grade.)
-- Two interactive displays from SUNY New Paltz Professors Aaron Isabel and Thais de Cuny inviting kids to make their own bouncy balls and to observe crickets up close.
Afterschool Science Bubbled with Life
This spring, Parents for Innovation decided to offer a fledgling science afterschool class. Our desire is to see more science programming, and more challenging, authentic science projects for students in grades K-8. But we started small — just a modest afterschool class in Rosendale Elementary School, for one month. We limited the class to 12 students. In one week, 25 signed up. Rather than turn anyone away, we split the group into two, with each section attending for two weeks only. It’s just a taste and it’s not enough — but it’s a start.
In the first two weeks, the students experimented with bubbles, moving drops of water, and mixing oil and water. Each class was built around observation, discovery, precision & questioning. For example, students measured their bubbles and recorded their results. We asked, "Did the kind of soap used change the size of the bubbles? What else did you notice?"
The next week, students rubbed water and then oil in their palms and recorded their observations. They said that "Water is liquid; it flows; it slides out of your hand". Oil is "thicker, slipperier, smelly". They noticed that water droplets attract each other and decided that was connected to the fact that water flows. (We talked about the fact that you don’t see a bunch of water drops in the ocean, you just see WATER.) They noticed that oil sank in the water, and surmised that this was connected to what they had noticed about its "thickness". And after an hour of discovery with oil and water, it was time to stop but they asked if they could please do more. YES; WE WILL DO MORE!! This is only the beginning of what we can -& should– do!
Other classes explored air and the human body. As Aaron Burke said, "These kids have some great teachers because they are coming in with a ton of prior knowledge."
The class was taught in alternate weeks by Aaron Burke, Dana Fulmer, and Ingrid Frengle-Burke. Carol Covas, Frannie Hertz, Kyra Sahasrabudhe, & Kelley Iacoboccio also generously joined in.
What would YOU like to see hap- pen with science? Some of the ideas that we have heard include having a theme-based science competition; having a more indepth science afterschool program; part- nering with local universities; and partnering older & younger stu- dents. Send your ideas into us at RondoutPFi@gmail.com.
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