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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Education News: December 12, 2010

December 10 | WY legislators recommend eliminating tenure--the widespread practice of protecting teachers from arbitrary firing--claiming that doing so will serve as "a wake-up call" for ineffective teachers, even while endangering the employment of effective ones -- Star-Tribune

December 9 | School of One uses technology both to assess students' learning needs daily and to deliver individualized instruction in a model of differentiation strikingly different from the traditional classroom -- Mind/Shift

December 9 | "Let Students Know What You Want Them to Learn -- And Test Them for That" recommends sharing daily instructional objectives with students in language they can understand so that they take ownership of what they're learning -- ASCD Express

December 9 | "What Teachers Want from Their Coaches" offers seven points for teachers serving as instructional coaches to their peers on the faculty -- ASCD Express

December 9 | "What Happens When Students Are Invited to Enhance Teacher Effectiveness" describes a program that recruits past students to return to serve as peer mentors in a high school course, supplementing the primary instruction from the teacher in ways that are enlightening to that teacher, too -- ASCD Express

December 9 | Educators hoping to increase girls' involvement in STEM areas (science, technology, engineering, and math) find ways to get girls interested in computer science courses and clubs -- Edutopia

December 8 | KY elementary teacher uses the applications on a classroom set of iPads to enhance reading lessons for her students -- Courier-Journal

December 8 | Blogger asserts that, although school libraries must evolve to suit tech-savvy students, they cannot be eliminated because they serve as information hubs in schools, and librarians are foremost in teaching students how to use technological resources to access and use information -- Edutopia

December 8 | Report shows that school systems worldwide that have raised students' scores on standardized exams have achieved that improvement by using similar strategies -- Education Week

December 8 | Article examines the ways that several large school districts use students' test scores to rate teachers for bonuses or for continuing employment -- WNYC News

December 8 | Technology can be used to allow special needs students access to a traditional classroom, even when doing so virtually -- T.H.E. Journal

December 7 | MN teachers participate in workshops to learn how to incorporate dance in their classes to help students understand non-dance-related concepts in lessons across the disciplines -- Star Tribune

December 7 | MA school district proposes policy that would prohibit teachers from becoming "friends" with students on social networking sites as a step toward preventing possible online misconduct -- Patriot Ledger

December 7 | Digital Learning Council plans to assess how well states are implementing their suggestions for increasing access and equity in digital learning -- Education Week

December 6 | Data suggest that only 30-50% of American juniors are proficient in the math and English content and skills laid out by the Common Core State Standards adopted by all a few states -- Education Week

December 5 | Finnish schools thrive despite (or because of?) characteristics that stand in contrast to other countries' schools -- The Guardian

December 4 | Parents struggle to protect their children from cyberbullying, finding their options for identifying and prosecuting the victimizers to be limited or unclear -- New York Times

December 3 | The Gates Foundation invests millions of dollars in effort to develop a system for evaluating teachers' effectiveness by analyzing their teaching as captured on digital video -- New York Times

December 3 | Teacher proposes three "top ten" lists outlining the responsibilities of teachers, students, and parents if the goal of student success is to be achieved -- Edutopia

December 1 | Neuroscience helps to separate the facts from the myths about brain-based learning and the teaching practices purported to be based upon research about the brain -- Edutopia

December 1 | Neuroscience shows that learning physically changes the brain; its neuroplasticity enables it to adapt in response to new information, and there are things teachers can do to make that growth happen -- Edutopia

December 1 | Neuroscience supports the notion that a stressed brain cannot learn; students need to feel emotional safety in the classroom environment if their brains are to form neural connections (i.e., learn) -- Edutopia

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