Tweets of the Week

Using proximity in the classroom.

The best thing about teaching is kids! The students constantly challenge our methods, amaze our expectations, and morph in fascinating thinkers analyzing everything in the world.

Here's a good link to help us analyze ourselves in the classroom.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ethical-conduct-classroom-margaret-regan
And an excerpt:

• Ensure that you face students who are speaking in class.
• Stand so that you have sightlines that allow everyone to be noticed.
• Mention students' good behavior and successful completion of assignments more frequently than you mention those that go wrong.
• Sit or noticeably pause to listen when a student is making an important point.
• Write good ideas on the board for later consideration.
• Teach the art of piggybacking ideas in class discussion so that students learn to connect what they are saying to the ideas of the person who spoke before them.
• Remember that your own physical presence in the room models your mission.

My emphasis on the last point. Proximity is an underestimated tool in the class. And accentuate the positive! Eight positives to two negatives in the comment department (because the negatives are more powerful.) Seriously.

Here is the quote of the week: "Think of oppositional behavior as an ingenious attempt to actually contribute."

That is truly positive thinking! And its true, too. Rascals are paying enough attention to class activity to successfully identify the perfect moment to joke, interrupt with sounds, gestures or motions, or propose a preposterous question. That takes paying a lot of attention! Use it to your advantage.

Hey, where's the Kindle?

Kids learn in so many new venues.

 Maybe with too much input from too many sources.

"There is a palpable concern among these experts," Rainie puts it, "that new social and economic divisions will emerge as those who are motivated and well-schooled reap rewards that are not matched by those who fail to master new media and tech literacies." As a result: "Many of the experts called for reinvention of public education to teach those skills and help learners avoid some of the obvious pitfalls of a hyper-connected lifestyle."

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/kids-cognition-is-changing-education-will-have-to-change-with-it/253782/#.T1bDSQqykwg.facebook

There is still a class divide in the educational realm.

All kids need a jump-start at education.

 http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/occupy-kindergarten-the-rich-poor-divide-starts-with-education/252914/#.T1bDf-I6Kps.facebook

You are what you eat, so they say. At least now cafeteria mystery meat is revealed.

What's in that stuff we feed our kids?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/03/09/148298678/is-it-safe-to-eat-pink-slime?sc=fb&cc=fp

Behavior modification and all its glory; are rewards effective? This is a very interesting article about when Jolly Ranchers and stickers stop working.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/reward-fraud-richard-curwin

I like the blue ones.

Teachers are getting tired and worried. So this is news?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/education/teacher-morale-sinks-survey-results-show.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share

"More than half of teachers expressed at least some reservation about their jobs, their highest level of dissatisfaction since 1989, the survey found. Also, roughly one in three said they were likely to leave the profession in the next five years, citing concerns over job security, as well as the effects of increased class size and deep cuts to services and programs. Just three years ago, the rate was one in four."

Not enough Jolly Ranchers and gold stars going out to teachers. I feel that pain!

How to evaluate teachers? Who gets the credit and who receives the blame?

Mr. Unknown Teacher is not a happy camper.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/against-teacher-shaming/253964/#.T1bC4CngDkk.facebook









                                                                                             

Teaching is going through a massive transition; I believe we will think of the kids' best interests and collaborate for the new methods of tomorrow. And I mean, like tomorrow! The day after will be too late.