Is the U.S. Dept. of Education Acting Like an Ineffective Elementary School Teacher? Is the State Dept. of Education Echoing Bad Classroom Management?

The article (in quotes) below is from the Connecticut Mirror  

In my first year as a teacher I discovered that you can only punish outliers and that punishing too many kids, too often, and for too many things was to risk losing my authority and to come off as an over-reactive paper tiger, struggling to control situations that should not have arisen in the first place. I think that all good educators come to this conclusion and I wonder why this doomed approach seems to be the only arrow the U.S. Department of Education has in its quiver when dealing with the Opt Out Movement. As explained in the article below and numerous others recently, apparently the U.S. Dept. of Ed. is threatening to punish state departments of Education (quite a good number of them) if they don't force a sufficient enough number of their state's students to take standardized tests. This, in the face of growing dissatisfaction with the culture of testing in our schools and more and more parents and their children simply 'opting out' as their coping mechanism of choice.


As a teacher and then as a central office program director, a curriculum department head, and finally a member of the Deputy Chancellor for Curriculum and Instruction's cabinet, I witnessed several Chancellors and Mayors of NYC declare that Social Promotion would be ended on their watch and that only students who actually achieved to the levels considered minimal for promotion would go on to the next grade at the beginning of the following school year. This of course was silly, because making this threat could not possibly change the achievement of low performing students and then, … well, what are you going to do with all of those kids who've been left back? Re-doing the entire school system to accommodate the remedial needs of an overwhelming percentage of the student body  would have derailed the organizational structure of the school system and cost more than the system could have afforded. No doubt, too, it would have precipitated the disdain of the public and the press who surely would have asked, "Well, why didn't you teach those kids properly in the first place?" Outsiders to the profession always seem to see the responsibility of educating a generation of youngsters in simplistic, black and white terms.


At any rate, what would make sense here would be for the U.S. Department of Education to sincerely ask "Why is it that so many kids and parents want to opt out?" THAT should be the starting point for coping with this growing trend, not forcing compliance!!! By the way, there are many good reasons to eliminate these tests; I think far more and far better reasons than there are for giving them considering their substance and the way that they currently are administered... but that's a topic to explore another day...

"State sets penalties for schools with high exam ‘opt-out’ rates

By: Jacqueline Rabe Thomas | December 29, 2015 

CtMirror.org file photo

School districts where more than 10 percent of students miss required statewide exams for a second consecutive year will lose funding and  may have their performance ratings downgraded.

The state Department of Education decided on the penalties after the U.S. Department of Education directed Connecticut and 12 other states to come up with plans to deal with high numbers of students that missed the annual exams last school year

 Districts that achieve the federally required participation rate of 95 percent will receive a letter of commendation from the state education commissioner, and those that have participation rates between 90 and 95 percent will receive a letter reminding them they must raise their participation rate to meet the federal requirement.

 This approach will ensure that districts meeting the standard are commended, those failing marginally are gently alerted, and those falling behind are strongly reminded of the potential consequences and provided support to remedy the situation," Connecticut Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell wrote in a letter to the federal government earlier this month. The letter was released Tuesday by the state education department.

It was not clear how much money the state would withhold from sanctioned school districts. The state gives schools performance ratings on a number of quality measurements, and schools that fall far short of required exam participation rates will be given a lower rating.
About 11,200 students did not take the state exams last school year — a growing trend referred to as the "opt-out movement." It coincides with growing concern among parents that their children are spending too much school time being tested or prepared for tests..."

Read the full article at its source: http://ctmirror.org/2015/12/29/state-sets-penalties-for-schools-with-high-exam-opt-out-rates/  

Twitter for Teacher Professional Development / Teachers Take Control of Their Own PD Needs

Important Article from EdWeek online...

"Teachers Turn to Twitter for Solutions, Connection

Educators say the social media platform offers immediacy and practicality lacking from school PD programs

For several years, growing numbers of teachers have been taking to Twitter to network and learn from other educators, often through education-related chat groups.

There are now dozens of Twitter communities for teachers, featuring weekly scheduled chats as well as continuous, ongoing discussions. Most every kind of K-12 niche is represented, often many times over: Science, English, leadership, professional associations, and state-based educator connections are all represented.

But even as so many online Twitter communities flourish—as old ones get bigger, new ones sprout up, and even school PD coordinators start to jump on the bandwagon—the value of Twitter as a source for professional learning remains anecdotal.

 

"We have recent converts who have tons of enthusiasm for what they're doing [on Twitter], then they turn to their peers, and their peers say, 'OK that's great, show me the results, show me the difference it makes,' " said Mark Weston, an author and ed-tech researcher who helps moderate the ubiquitous #edchat. "And we as a profession don't have an answer."
Still, many teachers maintain the professional development they get from Twitter is better than what they get through their schools..."

Read the full article at its source: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/30/teachers-turn-to-twitter-for-solutions-connection.html?cmp=eml-enl-tu-news2-RM

Classroom Social Media - Untapped Potential, Waiting

 

Great piece from T.H.E. Journal (see the full piece at its source)  http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/09/02/research-9-in-10-teachers-dont-use-social-media-in-the-classroom.aspx

"Research: 9 in 10 Teachers Don't Use Social Media in the Classroom

  

Nearly nine of 10 — 87 percent — of teachers have not incorporated social media into their classrooms, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of the University of Phoenix. The survey also found that more teachers, 62 percent, said they are reluctant to incorporate social media in their classrooms than in 2013, when 55 percent reported such hesitation.

Only 44 percent of teachers surveyed said that social media can enhance a student's educational experience.
"A lack of tools and training top the list of educator concerns," according to a news release. "Almost all (95 percent) of K-12 teachers say they have had some level of training related to integrating technology in the classroom; however, more than half (62 percent) have had minimal or no training in the area of interacting with students and parents through social media. Nearly half (48 percent) of K-12 teachers express the desire to learn more about integrating technology into the classroom."
A majority, 82 percent, also reported that they worry about conflicts that may arise from using social media with students or their parents and 62 percent said that use of personal devices outside the classroom makes it harder for students to pay attention in group settings inside the classroom. Twenty percent of teachers who responded said they've felt intimidated by their students' knowledge or use of technology.
"We are living in a rapidly evolving world of digital and social media, and many students are totally immersed and well versed in these platforms," said Kathy Cook, dean of educational technology at University of Phoenix College of Education, in a prepared statement. "For teachers to stay current, keep students engaged and promote learning, it is important for teachers to acknowledge the influence of social media and understand how to use it to the benefit of their students."
Cook offered six suggestions to help teachers integrate social media with their classrooms:

• Make sure you and your students understand your school or district's guidelines for social media. If there are none, consider developing some;
• Use closed sites designed for school environments, such as Edmodo, TodaysMeet, Kidblogs or Edublogs;
• Use products such as Global Read Aloud or Skype in the Classroom to connect students with peers around the world;
• Use social media to bring experts into the classroom;
• Use social media to get students involved in social service projects; and
• Use Twitter or other social media platforms to connect with other teachers to share ideas for social media in the classroom..."

Will Robot Tutors Make Personalizing Learning the Next Big Thing?

Great artilce from Wired... full article at its source: http://www.wired.com/2015/08/knewton-robot-tutor/

"This Robot Tutor Will Make Personalizing Education Easy"

Knewton

"Personalizing education can change a kid’s life. It can keep the advanced ones from getting bored and the struggling ones from falling behind, because every kid, no matter their level of proficiency, is encouraged to move at his or her own pace.


But for the teachers tasked with implementing this increasingly popular pedagogy, it pretty much sucks. Personalizing a lesson means creating even more work than already time-strapped, under-resourced teachers can handle. It means drafting more lesson plans, digging up more reading materials, and creating more assessments than they would have to if they stuck to the old-fashioned, if imperfect, method of teaching to the middle. The sheer amount of work that personalized education requires of the educator is one reason why so few large and needy public schools haven’t adopted personalized models at the same rate as their better-funded private school counterparts.
It’s also one reason why Jose Ferreira and his company, Knewton, have spent the last seven years working on a way to fix that problem with technology. Today, they’re launching the results of that work: a new, free tool that aims to automate personalized instruction for teachers.

To understand this new tool, you have to first understand what Knewton has been doing all these years. Founded in 2008, Knewton has spent the majority of its existence licensing technology to major educational content publishers like Houghton Mifflin. That technology allows those publishers to upload things like quizzes, reading assignments, videos, and more, and as students interact with the content, the system assesses how well each piece of content performs for a given type of student.
Meanwhile, the more students interact with the content, the more the technology learns about that student’s proficiency in any given subject and what it takes to keep that student engaged. As the system learns more about a student, it can automatically recommend the pieces of content that are most likely to help that student improve. In other words, it lifts the burden of those decisions off of the teacher.

For Knewton, this licensing work has become a sizable business. It’s accrued some 200,000 pieces of content over the years, which have been used by 10 million students in more than 20 countries around the world. Now, with this new tool, the company is unlocking the gates to this technology, by allowing any parent, student or teacher to access it for free.
“You always hear stories of teachers staying up until 2 am either writing their own content or finding it,” Ferreira says. “Teachers don’t pay for it in dollars. They pay in time and labor and quality assurance. We’re taking that part and making it free.”

Knewton

‘The Magic Pill’

Let’s say a math teacher is getting ready to teach her students the pythagorean theorem. The teacher could invite his students to join Knewton, and assign them all a lesson about the pythagorean theorem. Instead of serving each student the same video, though, the system would conduct an initial assessment to determine that student’s skill level down to the percentile.
Then, the system would mine all of its content to find the one video, reading assignment, game, or other piece of content, that’s best suited to that student. When the student’s finished the assignment, the system gives her another mini-assessment to determine if it helped her grasp the concept. If it did, the student will advance on, and if it didn’t, the system will find a slightly easier piece of content, until it finds a match. All of this happens without much teacher involvement at all.
“Teachers need more time and better outcomes and they need a magic pill that’s going to make that happen,” Ferreira says. “That’s what we’re trying to give them.”
But Knewton is getting something back as well. All of the content that these teachers will now upload to Knewton’s system. Using this tool, teachers can upload their own assignments, which Knewton will then vet with its vast network of students.

The system can rank the assignment’s level of difficulty, based on how students respond to it, so it knows exactly what type of students should see that content in the future. Then, the assignment gets automatically logged in Knewton’s system, available not only to that teacher’s class, but to millions of kids around the world. That’s good for the kids, but it’s also good for Knewton, whose technology grows more sophisticated and precise the more data it consumes.

Reading Your Mind

It’s worth noting that Knewton is not the first company that’s tried to automate personalized education. That was a key facet of Amplify, a much hyped ed-tech startup that was backed by News Corp. and is now, as The New York Times put it, about to meet “an inglorious end,” as Rupert Murdoch, its owner, hunts for a buyer. And yet, one of the key problems Amplify had was the fact that it tried to create its own curriculum. Not only that, the curriculum was tied to actual devices that Amplify sold to schools for $359 per student.

What Knewton is attempting to pull off ought to be an easier sell for schools, both because it’s free and because the teachers get to create their own curriculum, rather than relying on a company to do it for them. For Ferreira, who started off his career as a Kaplan tutor, before eventually becoming one of the company’s managing directors, the goal is to ensure that any student, no matter their skill level, or their family’s income level, has access to the personal assistance they need. “A good tutor can crack jokes and make you want to learn,” Ferreira says, “but this robot tutor can essentially read your mind.”

Social Media in Education

An insightful piece on Social Media in Schools!

"7 Ways Social Media Has a Role in Education

3/20/2015 4:40:00 AM

By Lisa Nielsen

The Americas Society and Council of the Americas invited me to discuss the role of social media in education with experts and leaders dedicated to advancing and shaping the political, economic, social and cultural agendas of the Western Hemisphere. The purpose was to take what works in New York City and bring it to other education systems. To follow are some ideas I shared that global leaders can bring back to their countries.

Why embrace social media for students and staff?

If we want to run for office, run a business, or change how things are run where we work, live, or play we must be savvy in the use of social media. It is crucial for college, career, and life success. It can also save time at work for teachers. Here’s how.
1. The Stats - College, Career, and Citizenship Success
Look who’s watching:
* 1/4 of college admissions officers consider digital footprint
* 3/4 of human resource managers
* 1/3 of employers reject candidates based on something found in profiles
More stats and info at https://magic.piktochart.com/output/1328944-nycdoe_create-the-digital-image-
2. Ensuring Students Are Well Googled
We need to be smart about ensuring we are preparing students to be well-Googled by the time they graduate high school. We must support them in creating an online presence that will lead help them get into that school, land that job, and attract the right people into their worlds for powerful global connections. Here are some ways to get started.
3. Social Credibility is the New Credentialing
Test scores and certifications worked well in the 20th century and are still used by some today, but in the 21st century, it is your online reputation that allows you to show what you know. This should begin in secondary school as expertise has no age requirement. An example of this is Armond McFadden who has a life long passion for mass transit as well as filming and photographing trains and busses. In middle school Armond began a video series about mass transit and started photographing various trains and busses. He became involved in several online communities to discuss mass transit and his work became well known. With social media, Armond was not a teenager, but a knowledgeable peer. His writing mattered. People listened. Read more about how Armond developed social credibility here.
"When I apply for part-time work or internships during college, I make sure employers know to look at my digital footprint which demonstrates that I have the skill set they want. I ensure my resume contains links to social media sites which looks fantastic for showing what I’m capable of and for giving employers background about me and my work." - Armond McFadden
4. Student Learning Networks
In the age of social media, the teacher is no longer the center of learning. The student is. One of the most important things an educator can do is support students in developing a powerful learning network. Being digitally literate and having social media savvy is what is needed to help students to connect with others who share their passions, talents, and interests. This requires understanding how social media works and how to find the right people to connect with safely and responsibly. It also requires an understanding of how to effectively use these tools to connect, collaborate, and grow learning. Want to know more? 15-year-old Alex Laubscher explains here.
5. Work More Effectively
Social media allows you to change the paradigm from “teacher” as expert to “group” as expert. Rather than asking around between classes or sending and tracking emails to multiple people who “may” know answers, you can ask a global community via social media.. This saves the asker time because there is a large audience and the traditional “askies” time because participants realize there is a whole community of knowledge out there. This reduces emails and increases the access to good answers and connections.
6. Connect with Experts via Twitter
You can find a world of experts on any topic if you have literacy in using Twitter also know as “Twitteracy.” Just know the right hashtags and how to find experts and you have the world’s best knowledge at your fingertips. It is better than any rolodex allowing you to connect anytime, anywhere, with the interested parties who are available now.
7. Release the Amazing Work of Students from the Classroom to the World
We hear stories in passing about the great work happening in schools, but usually it’s locked in a school or classroom or trapped on a laptop. Social media puts an end to that. First grade teacher Erin Shoening used Facebook to give families a window into her classroom. Second grade teacher Courtney Woods used Twitter to connect her students to a world of experts and outlets that helped to increase tourism in her community. Technology teacher Chris Casal brought positive attention to his school by showcasing an amazing parent community that came together to surprise students with something very special. Click here to find out what it was.
So, what do you think? Could some of these ideas be put into place where you work? Are there challenges or concerns that might get in the way? What are some ways you successfully incorporate social media into education where you work?

Lisa Nielsen writes for and speaks to audiences across the globe about learning innovatively and is frequently covered by local and national media for her views on “Passion (not data) Driven Learning,” "Thinking Outside the Ban" to harness the power of technology for learning, and using the power of social media to provide a voice to educators and students. Ms. Nielsen has worked for more than a decade in various capacities to support learning in real and innovative ways that will prepare students for success. In addition to her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator, Ms. Nielsen’s writing is featured in places such as Huffington Post, Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, ASCD Wholechild, MindShift, Leading & Learning, The Unplugged Mom, and is the author the book Teaching Generation Text.


Disclaimer: The information shared here is strictly that of the author and does not reflect the opinions or endorsement of her employer. "

True, It's not the kids; it's the system! And seeing that is step one in improving schools...

This W O N D E R F U L essay from the founder of Knewton found its way into my In Box. This is one of the clearest assessments of the situation teachers and students find themselves in currently that I've seen in ages. I wonder though, will Knewton powered solutions actually address the problems described here? Or will they be yet, more, 'reform' that actually props up the status quo? I have fingers crossed...

"We've all grown up with the factory model of education. It's come to seem totally normal. It's not normal at all." Read on for Jose's take on why (and how) our education system needs to change. - The Knerds

It's Not the Kids; It's the System by Jose Ferreira, Knewton founder and CEO Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others.” Until recently, the same could be said for the factory model of education. Imported from Europe and implemented at the urging of education reformer Horace Mann, the factory model puts kids into age-based classrooms and uses seat time to determine when they’re ready to move on to the next level. In many ways, it’s an awful system, rigid, arbitrary, and impersonal. But it’s also responsible for almost every modern innovation we rely on today. Read more ›

Projects NOT Tests Reveal What Kids Actually Know!

Projects of this sort mean TECHNOLOGY, they simply can't be done practically without it... the Instructional Technologist as School Leader will continue to evolve as a crucial player in the success of Education....See the interesting item below from EdWeek http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/07/17/nyc-high-school-strives-for-authentic-assessment.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1-RM

"N.Y.C. High School Strives for 'Authentic' Assessment

Tiffany Mungin, a graduating student from East Side Community High School, presents a long-term research project about U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War to David Vazquez, principal at the Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists, left, and Ben Wides, a 12th grade history teacher at East Side Community High School in New York.

—Mark Abramson for Education Week

By Catherine Gewertz

New York City

Tiffany Mungin spent many nervous weeks researching and writing her paper about the Vietnam War. Her high school graduation was on the line.
Unlike most New York state seniors, who vied for their diplomas by taking the state’s standardized tests, Ms. Mungin had to write a history research paper and an analytic essay in English/language arts. She also had to conduct an original science experiment and undertake an applied-mathematics project in order to graduate. The 18-year-old’s work would have to be evaluated by at least two teachers, and she would have to defend it in formal presentations ..."

Go to http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/07/17/nyc-high-school-strives-for-authentic-assessment.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1-RM for the full article.

What Makes for Effective Teacher Professional Development?

Insightful piece from Forbes... read the full article at its source... http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2015/06/10/the-eight-components-of-great-professional-development/

"The Eight Components Of Great Professional Development"

"Professional development is vital in any occupation, and nowhere more so than in teaching. But all too often it gets neglected or is more of a box-ticking exercise than any meaningful training.
But a new review has set out the eight core components that go into making continuing professional development (CPD) great – and their relevance goes way beyond teaching to provide a blueprint for training everywhere.

For many teachers, once they have completed their initial training, there is little or nothing by way of CPD. It is rarely compulsory, and what is available is often too limited to be of much use.
Some teachers can spend their entire careers without ever having updated their subject knowledge or adapted their teaching styles.

It was recognition of the effect of this gap that led to the creation of the Teacher Development Trust, a charity focused on raising awareness of the importance of professional development.

And this week, the trust published a report into what makes good CPD for teachers. Drawing on the results of studies conducted around the world, it sets out some of the principles that underpin effective development.

“We know that powerful professional development ultimately helps children succeed and teachers thrive,” David Weston, the trust’s chief executive, told an invited audience at the report’s launch at the House of Commons. “It is incredibly important that we respect our teachers and give them the development that our young people need.”

According to Steve Higgins, professor of education at Durham University and one of the report’s authors, the review of research aimed to fill a gap in our knowledge about teacher learning..."

CONTINUED>>>

The Key to Successful Tech Integration May be to Give Up Control to Students

From SmartBlog... some  advice - Do you agree?    
Read the  full article at its source http://smartblogs.com/education/2015/06/30/let-it-go/ 

"Let it go

By Kristina Peters on June 30th, 2015     

                    

What if educators listened to Frozen’s Queen Elsa a little more and “Let it Go”? Technology integration in the classrooms tends to stall when educators get in the way. Schools take steps to prevent this — professional development, educator resources, strategic rollout initiatives — and yet incorporating technology into the classroom remains a challenge for many sites. How do we change this?
Here are five ways you can foster true technology integration with your students:

1. Allow students to play on their devices. We encourage them to play with math manipulatives or other resources before getting started with a lesson. Let’s do the same with technology.
2. Give students time to play with a new app/tool when you introduce it. They want to take selfies and draw on their own faces when they first start to work with Skitch. They want to enter silly names when they play their first game of Kahoot. This is good; it allows them to get familiar and comfortable with the app.
3. Implement a work timeline with a paper or digital calendar. This simple addition will give students a visual cue to remember key dates and serve as touchpoints for teachers to check in.
4. Give students choice when they show their learning. Provide a rubric that outlines what they need to do in order to show mastery, but let students decide how. If you are just getting started, consider limiting the choice of apps or tools to a few. Let them show you their learning in a variety of ways.
5. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to use the app/tool. Students will figure it out and become the experts, and ultimately help their peers.

Don’t let technology integration stall because you aren’t ready, don’t feel comfortable or hate to lose the teacher-centered model. Let it go...."

Richardson on Effective Teaching for the Next Decade: Some Important "Ah Ha's"

Important article from SmartBlog on Education http://smartblogs.com/education/2015/07/01/5-new-realities-in-education/

5 new realities in education

By Melissa Greenwood on July 1st, 2015 |      

                 

The vast majority of us now work in environments where the ability to learn is more critical than what we know and where the most valuable currency is influence, not power. — Liz Wiseman, Rookie Smarts

The education landscape has shifted dramatically during the last 10 years. Tablets have replaced textbooks. Students use smartphones during class — for learning. Educators connect online to share best practices.

What does the next decade hold for education? What will become the future of schools? Educator and author Will Richardson took on the topic during his ISTE 2015 session, Tech in 10: Effective Teaching for the Next Decade.
“‘Knowledge’ isn’t the word any longer. ‘Skills’ is no longer the term. ‘Learning’ is the word,” Richardson said, noting that the jobs of tomorrow will require serial mastery. “If our kids don’t have the ability to learn, it really doesn’t matter how much knowledge we give them.”
“This is a very different world that our kids are stepping into,” he said. And educators may need to modernize their classrooms to prepare students for what they are about to meet with in the workplace.
Here’s a snapshot of five new realities in education that Richardson highlighted during his session:

1. Access amplifies agency. Ninety-two percent of teens go online on a daily basis, and 75% of kids in the U.S. have access to a smartphone. When students have this kind of access, it amplifies their ability to learn, and they have more agency — more choice — in learning.
2. Learners are designers of their own education. If students — or adults — want to learn something, they don’t often take a course. Instead, they go online and search “how do I…”
3. Access, creation and sharing of information is uncontrollable. Kids are walking into uncontrolled online environments when they leave school. A better solution than controlling it would be to teach kids how to manage the uncontrolled environment.
4. Courses are active compositions. Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Learners may compose as they go. It’s really about: What do I want to learn and how are you going to help me learn it?
5. PD is the responsibility of the professional. If you don’t know how to use Twitter, and you want to learn how, go learn Twitter. Don’t wait for a Twitter workshop. Students are not waiting for workshops, and educators need to be able to learn — and model learning — in this proactive way.

“This isn’t just about learning,” Richardson said. “It’s about the future of work and wealth.” If kids are only able to do routine jobs that are well defined and go by explicit instruction they are not going to be prepared for the workforce because those kinds of jobs are going away.
The jobs of tomorrow will require flexibility, creativity and problem-solving, Richardson noted, leaving us to consider this question: “Are we giving kids opportunities in classrooms to learn continually, to adapt, to be persistent, to develop dispositions around which they can continue to learn?”
 

Teacher Leaders to Help Plan Teacher Professional Development.... What a Concept! Who Woulda' Thunk?

"Hamburg to institute teacher leaders next year"

"Hamburg Central is adding 39 “teacher leader” positions in the fall to serve as liaisons with administrators.
The new positions are based on elementary, secondary and district wide needs, with individual departments selecting leaders based on proven expertise in a level or content area, as well as a teacher’s capacity to support district-level and building-level instructional goals. The teacher leaders, who will be teachers already in the district, also will work with their colleagues to identify staff development needs.
“We are fortunate that our teachers continue to work cooperatively with us, and that we have been able to come together to strengthen the collaboration and communication on curriculum, assessment and instructional matters,” Superintendent Michael Cornell said.
“Teacher leadership is a critical element in student achievement,” said Colleen Kaney, assistant superintendent for student services, curriculum and instruction.
The School Board, during a special meeting Monday, approved a memorandum of agreement between the district and the Hamburg Teachers Association creating the positions for the 2015-16 school year.
There will be 10 leaders in the high school, 10 in the middle school, 16 at the elementary level and three district wide. The teachers will earn a stipend of $1,600.
Areas for the leaders include English language arts, library media center, academic intervention services, math, science, social studies, special education, language other than English, music, art, business, technology, physical education, health, family and consumer sciences, prekindergarten, kindergarten, psychologists, counselors, social workers and related services..."

Read the full article at its source: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/hamburg/hamburg-to-institute-teacher-leaders-next-year-20150624

MOOCs for Teacher TECH Professional Development? DUH!

IMPORTANT article from Atlantic magazine.... http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-secret-power-of-moocs/396608/

Education

"The (Accidental) Power of MOOCs"

"Massive open online courses looked like they were on their way out—and then researchers discovered something curious about who’s participating.

Tami Chappell / Reuters

                                           

Back in 2013, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that MOOCs—massive open online courses—were about to change everything:

Nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty—by providing them an affordable education to get a job or improve in the job they have. Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems. And nothing has more potential to enable us to reimagine higher education ...

MOOCs have since lost their hype, undergoing flameouts and suffering from poor participation and competency rates. A University of Pennsylvania study of 1 million MOOC users who participated in 16 of the school’s Coursera classes, for example, found that only about half of the registrants viewed even a single online lecture and that the average completion rate was just 4 percent.

Even so, it may not be time to write them off. An unexplained phenomenon in early MOOC data, now illuminated by another recent study (this one from Harvard and MIT), could help the courses live up to the education-reform hype after all—but with a somewhat ironic twist. Perhaps one of the overlooked values in MOOCs is not in sharing Ivy League wisdom with the masses, but in teaching educators—and, in turn, improving traditional K-12 schools.

An unexplained phenomenon revealed in early MOOC research could help the courses live up to the education-reform hype after all—but with an ironic twist.

From the outset, analyses of MOOC students showed that enrollees were already overwhelmingly educated. According to various MOOC enrollment data, including that contained in the UPenn study, a majority of those registering for the free classes (between 70 and 80 percent) already had college degrees. That’s about double the rate of the U.S. population at large. And in other parts of the world—where free online college classes were envisioned as tools of social mobility—the portion of already-educated students was even more dramatic. Last year, a piece of commentary that ran in The Times cited a study showing that in countries such as Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa—where just 5 percent of residents have college degrees—more than 80 percent of MOOC students had one.

Although there wasn’t a lot of hard research to support it, many analysts pegged the high percentage of already-degreed students in MOOCs to an interest in freshening up job skills. Meanwhile, some MOOC backers attributed the lack of degree-seekers in the free courses to limited broadband access among lower-income populations.

 

Then, earlier this year, Harvard and MIT released what’s ostensibly the largest study to date of MOOCs and their participants. The joint study examined 68 courses offered by the two institutions though the edX platform, covering 1.7 million participants and more than 1.1 billion “events”—what the study defines as each participant “click” recorded in the edX servers. The report not only confirmed that MOOC students tend to be college-educated, but it also demonstrated that a striking percentage of those students are educators themselves. “What jumped out for me was that ... as many as 39 percent of our learners [in MOOCs overall] are teachers,” said Isaac Chuang, one of the study’s lead researchers. In some of Harvard’s MOOCs, half the students were teachers. And in “Leaders of Learning”—a course out of its Graduate School of Education—a whopping two-thirds of participants identified as such.

This makes sense. Teachers devote their lives to the arts and sciences of sharing information and imparting skills. That they would voluntarily participate in an online-learning experience focusing on a field they already know isn’t that surprising; as practitioners of education, teachers may also have an interest in the processes and applications of MOOCs, studying how questions, assignments, and tests are handled in online teaching environments, for example. Nor is it surprising that teachers are interested in pedagogy—watching and learning how an applauded instructor delivers a lesson. Educators may want to see how an esteemed Harvard professor, for instance, teaches topics they cover in their own classrooms. Or they may want to appropriate the learning resources used in the MOOCs.

And if teachers are flocking to MOOCs to observe their more-accomplished colleagues or pick up new ideas to apply in their own classrooms, this trend could accelerate a needed renaissance in professional development for teachers.

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Nationally, professional development—the process of keeping teachers up to date on subjects and teaching methods—is a costly and (arguably) futile endeavor. Every state requires some form of ongoing education for teachers; the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has said the United States spends about $2.5 billion on it every year. “But when I say that to teachers they usually laugh or cry,” Duncan said. “They are not feeling it. We have to do better with professional-development money.”

And that’s probably an understatement: Teachers don’t seem to be “feeling” professional development at all. According to a 2009 study from the Center for Public Education, when asked about their experience in professional development, most of the teachers surveyed “reported that it was totally useless.”

No Technology? NO Common Core Instruction!

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The biggest such effort is the EngageNY website created by that state's Department of Education with federal funding. The free site includes complete K-12 English Language Arts and math curriculums, including downloadable lessons that can be printed out.

"Years into Common Core, teachers lament lack of materials"

The learning standards were new. The textbooks were not. So curriculum director Tammy Baumann and her team took the books apart, literally. Then they rearranged lessons, filled in holes with outside material and put it all together in what will be the K-2 math curriculum in the fall at her district in East Lansing, Michigan. It was a time-consuming but necessary response, Baumann said, to what appears to be a near-universal lament of teachers as they page through textbooks and websites: a lack of high-quality teaching materials aligned to the Common Core Learning Standards that have been adopted by most states. "We literally created our own curriculum ... essentially creating it from scratch - creating the homework, creating the student achievement challenges," Baumann said at the end of a school year spent collecting feedback and refining the materials. Five years into the implementation of Common Core, standards meant to steer students from rote memorization toward critical thinking, 45 percent of school districts reported "major problems" finding good aligned textbooks, and another 45 percent reported "minor problems," an October survey by the Center of Education Policy found. "The need for standards-aligned curricula is undoubtedly the most cited implementation challenge for states, districts and schools," said a May report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Publishing industry executives said some education publishers produced materials more quickly than others, but other factors have been at play. Most significant are the shift to digital learning and the lingering effects of the recession, which left many school districts without money to replace textbooks published before the new standards took hold. Nevertheless, the appearance that standardized tests were aligned to Common Core more quickly than textbooks has added to the distrust of the more rigorous standards, which teachers largely support, said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "Overwhelmingly," the union leader said, "the biggest cause of stress among teachers is not just class sizes but mandated new curriculum that are imposed without any real materials or training." "If you're changing to standards that are eliciting deeper thinking and more rigor and asking kids to explain what they've learned, then you have to create curriculum and curricular units that are aligned with that and are engaging," Weingarten said, "and then you have to give teachers the time to work with them and tailor them to their classes." Even some textbooks that say they are Common Core-aligned aren't necessarily so, analyses have shown. "Not only do they not cover what they should, but they cover a lot of stuff that they shouldn't," said William Schmidt, director of the Center for the Study of Curriculum at Michigan State University's College of Education. Schmidt's analysis of 34 widely used math textbook series found that those released after 2011 were, predictably, better aligned to Common Core than older ones but still left out about 20 percent of the standards. Such findings have given rise to a nonprofit website funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, EdReports.org, which reviews materials for alignment and quality. Schmidt and others said publishers appear to have been slow to fully invest in Common Core, perhaps while waiting to see whether the standards would last, especially given the political debate that has led some states to drop them. "I'm sure there were publishers who did say, `Let's think about this,'" said Jay Diskey, executive director of the PreK-12 division of the Association of American Publishers, "but others went quickly into the Common Core transition," developing instructional material off of the grade-by-grade standards. "Frankly, the prospect of the entire nation, schools in all 50 states, swapping out reading and math for new Common Core materials represented the largest market opportunity ever in United States K-12 education publishing," Diskey said. "It hasn't fully materialized yet, simply because of some of the political issues and the still-lingering effects of the recession in some of these school districts." In the meantime, the so-called OER movement - short for open educational resources - continues to take hold, with anyone from teachers to states making curriculum available for free or for sale online. The biggest such effort is the EngageNY website created by that state's Department of Education with federal funding. The free site includes complete K-12 English Language Arts and math curriculums, including downloadable lessons that can be printed out. State data showed more than 20 million downloads of material from the site as of early June, with a third of downloads initiated from outside New York as districts like Berkeley, California, adopt it. "That, to me, is a pretty good proof point that no matter where you are, teachers and school districts are just not that happy with the quality of material that's available to them through traditional commercial publishing routes," said Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the Fordham Institute.

AFT's teacher-fed "Share My Lesson" site has attracted 750,000 teachers and has seen more than 9 million downloads of materials since launching in 2012...