The Ophelia Project—All About Cyberbullying

As of July 2013, all curriculum downloads of The Ophelia Project resources are free. These include information about relational aggression and five critical steps teachers can take to help students, the Cyberbullying OneSheet, and resources for teachers, parents, administrators, mentors, and middle school and high school students. On the site, you can browse by curriculum such as K-8 Classroom Meetings, High School Self-Empowerment, Grades 4-5 Friendship Unit, and Youth Leadership.

Do You Know What SEL Is?

SEL or Social and Emotional Learning is one of strategies that the George Lucas Foundation promotes in its effort to transform learning. When SEL becomes part of a school’s curriculum, students increase in self-esteem and in the appreciation of others, improve academic performance, and “reduce aggression and emotional distress.” Watch the SEL 6-minute video to find more about student success in programs that emphasize social and emotional learning.

Summer Reading for Teachers and Administrators

Teacher and Educational Journalist Mark Phillips, in his Edutopia article, Summer Reading for Educators: My Favorites, has some excellent suggestions for us.  These include a book that tackles the problems of bullying, one that keeps you informed about what your students are reading, and others that address creative thinking, learning settings, student engagement, media literacy, engaged teaching, and sensitivity.

So, what is the next Hunger Games for our students? Most likely, it will be The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. Phillips’ summer film recommendation for you is: A Year at Mission Hill.

Are Some Parents Misguided Advocates?

Dr. Allen Mendler’s “Rethinking Difficult Parents”, in edutopia, describes parents that teachers encounter and wish they hadn’t. We’ve all heard parents protect their children by saying: “My daughter would never lie.”, “My son doesn’t have a temper.”, “Why wasn’t everyone disciplined?”, and “My child has a personality conflict with that teacher.” Dr. Mendler tells us that these parents are being advocates for their children and that what they really want is to feel that teachers care about their children. In the article, the author give ideas for how to talk with parents who are very upset, how to learn more about their children from them, how to keep the focus on the parents’ child even when the parents may try to bring others into the conversation, how to show appreciation for parents’ suggestions, and how to include positive input along with the problems being discussed. Most of all, when faced with a difficult or angry parent, give the parents time to explain what is bothering them without being defensive or interrupting their dialog. Listening can ease many difficult situations and, when things calm down, give teachers the opportunity to thank the parents for the suggestions and establish what is possible for the future.

Common Core Pushback

What’s all the fuss over Common Core Standards? Marc Tucker, in his Education Week blog piece “Testing, the Common Core, and Consumer Resistance”, says that American teachers are used to tests that don’t match the curriculum, are cheap, don’t really assess complex skills or creativity, are too dependent on multiple choice questions, are far too frequent, and aren’t like those used in countries with top-performing students. Therefore, the rebellion against Common Core is understandable, especially if schools don’t have curricula and tests that align with the standards. Perhaps, we are not ready for Common Core? Do other parts of our educational systems need to be revamped before we can put such standards into place? Do we need to change testing by grade level and test, like some other countries, just a few times in a student’s education? Do teacher evaluations need to be linked to test results? Anti-Common Core groups such as Hoosiers against Common Core and Arizonans Against Common Core are springing up throughout the country. Indiana, for example, has decided to “pause” entrance into Common Core. We know that we need to improve our schools, but many parents and teachers are telling us that Common Core and frequent testing is not the way.

What Makes a Good Teacher?

Can good teaching be measured? Temple University Professor Ronald Granieri says that efforts to evaluate teachers through quantitative means “are susceptible to interpretation and manipulation”, and even if these problems are avoided, what we discover is not really what we want to know. New Jersey Superintendent Lorraine Cella agrees. She asks how such evaluations will be able to tell us which teachers make a difference in students’ lives? According to Cella, “My greatest worry is that teachers will fade into deadly, robotic, fit-the-rubric nonentities” because their goal is to achieve a certain score, not change students’ lives. As we try to figure out ways to fill our schools with the best teachers, how do we keep them in the system if we don’t understand how to evaluate hard-to-measure qualities that make teaching a profession?

Teacher Core for PBS Learning Media

Twenty-eight K-12 educators and library media specialists comprise the PBS LearningMedia Teacher Core. These are teachers who work with their local PBS stations to promote digital learning in their communities. Teacher Core members take part in a two-day Digital Education Summit at PBS, which helps them with  learning about tools and techniques designed to enhance learning.  Current Core members come from Washington, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Wyoming, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, California, and Michigan. If you are interested in promoting online media in schools and homes, you might want to become a Teacher Core member.

Too Much Questionable Testing?

At this time of year, I hear teachers complaining about the time it takes for testing. “Thank heavens we are finished with the testing. Now, I can get back to teaching.” “We were testing last week, so I had time to cut out puzzle pieces.”

In June, parents in New York called for more teaching, less testing. Some say that some test questions are of poor quality and some tests contain major errors. Bedford Central District in Westchester County, New York voted in a resolution against the overuse and misuse of standardized testing.  Are we becoming dependent upon assessing our students with products developed by outside agencies and are the demands of preparing for and taking tests subtracting too much time from teaching hours? Are we sending teachers the message that they do not know how to evaluate their students? Don’t we hear often that test results are not used or, at least, not used effectively? We learned that Common_Core tests will take up to ten hours; districts giving them will have twenty days to administer them.

EduClipper, A Digital Clipboard

eduClipper is a free social Web resource that lets you “clip” what you want from the Internet—articles, images, videos, links—whatever you find. All you have to do to sign up is to submit your email address. Then, you can clip and save to eduClipper. The content is searchable and you can share your work with other social networks.  Even without signing up, you can explore and share what others have posted on the site. Some of the already clipped resources include apps for iPads, posters to help combat bullying, a diagram of the seven layers of density, common core math lessons, information on stress in the workplace, texting grammar, monthly writing activities, and much more.

Writing to Please Robot Readers

Some time ago we wrote about Les Perelman’s (MIT) challenge to the authors of a study that claimed machines could grade writing as well as teachers.  Mark D. Shermis, one of the authors of the study, said “mostly Perelman’s criticisms don’t add up.” Perelman, on the other side of the argument, is worried that states will go along with machine grading based on the study. The machine graders may, according to Perelman, lead teachers to teach to please the robot readers, which look for “length and loquacious wording, even if they don’t quite make sense.”