Students As Financial Aides

Kudos to Patrick Flannery and Douglas Knight Singer for running a program that allows a group of San Francisco high school juniors and seniors to obtain experience in the world of tax preparation. Not only do these students get certified to prepare taxes for individuals with an annual household income of less than $38,000, they will also become certified in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Students must attend a coaching session from October through December and then a refresher course in December and January prior to taking a certification test in January. Students must be recertified each year.

Not only are students exposed to the reality of tax rules and regulations, they are also receive experience in a small business setting. Within this setting, students must learn to act in a professional manner with a customer clientel, learn to work cooperatively with teammates and discuss questions and issues with peers. All in all, they are obtaining a very valuable real-world experience as a high school student. It also encourages students to take a leading role within their community. What a neat experience!

http://www.edutopia.org/high-school-tax-assistance

Great STEM Resources

Thank you to the Edutopia group "Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics" for generating a post with numerous STEM resources. I found these sites to be extremely interesting and I love the fact that they cover K-12 grade levels. The sooner we can expose our students to these concepts and get them "hooked", the better off we will be. I feel that it is extremely important to get kids involved in STEM projects early on and show them how the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics affect EVERYTHING we do on a daily basis. Thanks again for some great information!

http://www.edutopia.org/groups/science-technology-engineering-mathematics-education/6802

Structured Consequences for Missing Assignments

Upon reading Nicole Lemire's Edutopia's post Missing Homework Solutions, I was glad to see that some middle schools are taking a step towards teaching their students that there are consequences for late/missing assignments. Lemire discusses a conference her colleagues attended to help establish a structure for handling missing assignments and making students accountable. Lemire's district found that by making consequences that students could relate to (i.e. enforcing students with missing assignments to attend a study hall during lunch time until all assignments were turned in) helped to make students realize the importance of turning assignments in on-time the first time around.

As a high school teacher, I appreciate this effort coming from a middle school. In my classes, regardless of whether I have freshmen or seniors, I always try to iterate the importance of turning assignments/work in on time. As a class we talk about not only how it can affect a grade, but ultimately, in the work force, we discuss that late/missing tasks could result in a loss of a job.

http://www.edutopia.org/groups/middle-school/33093

Teaching Honors Students

One would assume that if given a choice, teaching honors or gifted children would be much easier than teaching the average or below average student. I too used to fall in this category. However, after going from teaching freshmen algebra to calculus students, I have discovered first hand, that it's not as "easy" as I thought it would be. Edutopia's article The Challenges of Teaching Honors Students by Heather Wolpert-Gawron, discusses some of the differences between teaching the mainstream child and teaching honors students.

One of the biggest things I have noticed and something that the article points out is the honor students ability to accept "failure". Failure meaning, not coming up with the excact answer or getting an A- instead of an A. Honor students appear to have a hard time adjusting to these. Additionally, I have found that when given the opportunity to work in groups, they would much rather work by themselves to ensure that the project is done "right". I have actually had instances where I have had to make the students work together.

Additionally, I have had honor student that get so wrapped up in the academics, that they forget about real-world applications. It's almost as if things exist only in a theoretical and ideal world. When they face a problem with an open-ended answer or worse yet, a problem with mulitple solutions, it's almost as if these students do not know what to do.

On the flip side, I have found that the honors students can be pushed to a higher level of thinking and that they are more than willing to accept new challenges. They are also more responsible when it comes to getting homework and assignments completed in a very timely manner - if not early. Teaching both levels has definitely mad me a more rounded teacher and has taught me quite a lot!

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-honors-gifted-students-challenges

Leading By Example

What a fascinating way to demonstrate one’s beliefs for a cause! Edutopia’s article, On a Mission to Link the Body and Brain in Education -- One Push-up at a Time, discusses how one individual has taken a stance and is trying to prove a valid point. Joel Kirsch, a 62 year old former sports psychologist for the San Francisco Giants and president of the Northern California-based American Sports Institute, has chosen to do approximately 50 miles worth of push-ups in California all in the name of promoting the importance of physical education and activity in today’s society. Moving about 1 mile a day, Kirsch is bringing about awareness that in order for students to academically succeed, they need to be fully engaged in physical activity.
Not only will the engagement of physical activity promote learning in education, it also teaches our students how to become healthy individuals, lower their medical costs and get a good night’s sleep without the use of pills or other medications. Who wouldn’t want that? Kudos to Joel Kirsch for actively promoting what he believes in!

http://www.edutopia.org/physical-education-advocacy-push-ups-kirsch

Visual Guided Learning

Fran Smith's The Eyes Have It: Potent Visuals Promote Academic Richness article is an interesting article that discusses how some schools have investigated the use of displaying an image and having their students learn based upon the questions/responses the the students have for the image. The teacher then paraphrases the response and guides the conversation into an educational discussion. I found this article to be a neat way to approach some topics as it really appeals to those students of artistic talents and it teaches other students that pictures really do "say 1000 words". However, like any other strategy, I feel as though this would be great to use in particular situations and probably more so in certain topics. I do not think it is a 'one-size fits all' approach. I still believe that there is a time and place for students to have to sit down and watch/listen to learn regardless of the generation that is being taught.

http://www.edutopia.org/visual-thinking-strategies-art-curriculum

Staying 'Caught Up' with the Curriculum

On November 2, Rebecca Alber wrote an article titled How to Stay Caught Up with the Curriculum. In this article, Alber discusses the pressure teachers feel to either be at a particular point by a certain time which in turn ends up being a "race" with collegues who also teach the same subject. She uses a phrase that I really like. She said "to compare is to despair". How true is this?! One cannot assume that a text book pacing guide (which is not to be mis-interpreted as a set in stone schedule) or a colleague's classroom pace will adequately ensure that your own students are effectively learning the material? Sometimes we as educators need to sacrifice the "extra" day or two and ensure that our students are students are learning the core objectives before we try to build upon them just to keep up.

Abler also discusses the importance of covering in depth vs. in breadth. She points out that sometimes, we need to "slow down to go quickly". It's only common sense that if we as learners understand step one thoroughly, we will have a better chance at understanding step two. However, if we lack the skills to understand the first step, it's even less likely that we will understand the second step.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/curriculum-how-to-stay-caught-up-rebecca-alber