Dealing With Students Who Bully: Part II
Once I've reminded myself of my role and goal, I'm ready to deal with Jon, the student introduced in my last post, "Dealing With Students Who Bully: Part I (The Essential First Step)." The next few sentences are a challenge. I'd like to write something that my audience will like. Sorry to disappoint, but there is no magic bullet. If you have conquered your disappointment and continued reading, I can share two things that I always do when dealing with kids like Jon. Creating and maintaining a positive relationship with Jon is not a one-shot deal. The other thing I do with a student like Jon in this situation is to try to create (or explore if we have) a shared quality world picture. I don't begin by asking Jon, "What do you want?" This may sound strange, but it doesn't especially matter to me what Jon says. I have had countless interactions like this, and I have never had a student tell me that my goal is unreasonable. "OK, so we agree that it's reasonable to want a safe environment.
Experts & NewBIEs | Bloggers on Project Based Learning: PBL Design Deep Dive –What Products, and How Many?
When designing a project, teachers frequently ask, “Should my students/teams create:The same product with the same focus or topic?”The same product, but with a different focus or topic?”A different product with the same focus or topic?"A different product, but with a different focus or topic?” As you have grown accustomed to in PBL, there is no ONE “right” answer to this question. The “same product with the same focus or topic” is often a good option in the elementary grades, or in the secondary grades when the project has a narrow scope of content and/or short duration. One project that fit this bill was a math project designed to teach systems of linear equations and processes to collect, organize and represent mathematical data. The teacher asked the driving question, “How can we develop an evidence-based recommendation to the White Rock Marathon Committee regarding the use of MP3 devices?” I worked with a teacher once who wanted to “PBLize” his persuasive writing unit.
Renaming Fruits And Vegetables With Catchy Names Convinces Kids To Eat Them, Study Says
Renaming fruits and vegetables with catchy, attractive monikers could more easily convince children to eat them, according to a new study. Researchers at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab tested the likelihood that students at five ethnically and economically diverse schools schools would eat items dubbed "X-Ray Vision Carrots," "Power Punch Broccoli," "Tiny Tasty Tree Tops" and "Silly Dilly Green Beans" over the same foods labeled "Food of the Day." The results were overwhelming -- for instance, in one school 66 percent of the carrots labeled "X-Ray Vision Carrots" were eaten up versus the 32 percent when they were labeled "Food of the Day." In a release, the study's lead author Brian Wansink explained that the finding could provide a cheap solution to improving kids' diets: Of the 1,552 students involved 47.8% attended the treatment school. The Cornell findings aren't the first to suggest simple tweaks could add up to big changes in kids' diets. Also on HuffPost:
10 Practical Ideas For Better Project-Based Learning In Your Classroom
By Jennifer Rita Nichols, TeachThought Intern Teachers are incorporating more and more projects into their curriculum, allowing for much greater levels of collaboration and responsibility for students at all levels. Project- based learning is a popular trend, and even teachers who don’t necessarily follow that approach still see the benefit to using projects to advance their students’ learning. Projects can be wonderful teaching tools. They can allow for a more student-centred environment, where teachers can guide students in their learning instead of using lectures to provide them with information. The increase in classroom technology also makes projects more accessible to students. Despite general agreement about the benefits of using projects and project-based learning in general, it must be noted that all projects are not created equal! This may happen fairly often because teachers are wary about being able to assign grades to the final assignments handed in to them by students.
Girls Launch Their Own High-Interest STEM Project -- into Space
Hope Hardison, Emma Brittenham, Mini Ganesh, Anna Scifres, Lexi Stewart, and Maia Madison -- the project team from Cumberland Trace Elementary School in Bowling Green, KY. Photo credit: David Scifres When six middle-school girls from Bowling Green, Kentucky, got the wild idea to launch a camera into space, they knew there would be big challenges ahead. Three months later, they had breathtaking photographic evidence -- taken from 22 miles above Earth -- to prove that they had accomplished their mission. I recently caught up with the team by phone, eager to hear more about why they spent their summer on a STEM project of their own design. #1: Aim High The project idea started with a casual conversation last spring. Before long, four more girls from Cumberland Trace Elementary School joined the team: Hope Hardison, Emma Brittenham, Lexi Stewart, and Maia Madison. The girls came up with a plan that they described as "seemingly impossible but absolutely achievable." #2: Share Your Enthusiasm
Why English teachers should care about project-based learning: multiliteracies, assessment for learning and digital technologies. |
There is impetus for pedagogical change in the English classroom. Bull and Anstey (2010, p.6) observed that, ‘literacy teaching and learning should respond to the rapid changes in literacy arising from increasing globalization, technology and social diversity.’ This transforming social, cultural and technological landscape necessarily brings with it a new set of opportunities and challenges for secondary English teachers. Three such challenges include the purposeful integration of digital technologies into the classroom, the use of assessment for learning practices and the emergence of new literacies. The reshaping of traditional teacher-centred pedagogy to a more student-centred, inquiry-based pedagogy may assist Australian secondary English classroom with meeting these new challenges. This study is designed to answer three questions: How are digital technologies used when project-based learning is introduced into the Australian secondary English classroom? Figure 1 Data Collection
Flipped classroom technology: More teachers flipping their classrooms with technology
7:30 p.m. EST, September 16, 2012|By Erica Rodriguez, Orlando Sentinel On the first day of school in Kevin Franklin's world-history class, students whipped out their cellphones, scanned a bar code taped near the classroom door and jumped to their first assignments. During the first few weeks of school, 24-year-old Franklin had no plans to stand up and lecture about the history of the world with PowerPoint. These days, class time is reserved for projects such as making podcasts about the Byzantine Empire or designing a digital collage about Japanese feudalism on Glogster, a visual social network. "Rather than being exposed to content, they're engaged with the content," Franklin said. Franklin's approach is what's known as the "flipped classroom," a teaching style that more Central Florida instructors are using to turn the school day on its head. In Franklin's class, students said they were surprised to learn their class would be conducted through a Google site.
