Why Students Shouldn’t Write Off STEM Education

by Rose Pleuler, Fall 2012 Intern

As a person a little scared to so much as add without the help of a calculator, I understand why STEM has a menacing reputation among high school students. The STEM skills—that is, science, technology, engineering and math—are often considered complicated and unnecessary lessons to students who don’t want to be scientists, technicians, engineers or mathematicians. Many students assume they’re better off avoiding these courses altogether. However, it is important to let students know the true significance of developing STEM skills.

In an educational setting, STEM is about learning how to think and assess. The basic skills taught in a STEM course are to think logically and to formulate critical questions. Complex questions can be tackled by guiding yourself through the principles of scientific thought. This way, students learn to ask good questions. He or she learns how to form strong hypotheses and to seek data that will confirm or deny those hypotheses. Whether analyzing a math proof or a chemistry formula, the underlying goal is the same for the student: be a problem solver. This skill is not important to just STEM fields, but to almost any career.

Outside the classroom, rapidly advancing technology means any career path may require some level of STEM literacy. In fact, while there is a great deal of under- and unemployment in the nation, jobs related to STEM remain understaffed due to the lack of skills. There is a new level of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary cohesion to the national workforce, where STEM subjects gain relevancy in many fields, from bioengineering to online learning. It’s not only the subject matter that makes STEM relevant in a plethora of work environments, it’s the skills to solve problems creatively and see the big picture that is really important and is first learned in the STEM subjects in school.

As STEM compels us to understand our world as a complex machine, it also encourages us to improve it. A greater national STEM literacy creates a more informed, more invested population. Dedication to problem solving translates to societal improvement. It’s important to encourage students in the STEM fields to hone skills that will become vital as they grow up into the workforce of the next generation.

Further Reading

“STEM’s New Reputation,” publishingsolutionsgroup.com, accessed November 5, 2012, http://publishingsolutionsgroup.com/blog/stems_new_reputation/.

“Verizon Initiative Aims to Raise STEM Enthusiasm in Students,” EducationNews.org, accessed November 5, 2012, http://www.educationnews.org/technology/verizon-initiative-aims-to-raise-stem-enthusiasm-in-students/.

“Why CIOs Desperately Need a Technology-Literate Society,” CIO Journal (The Wall Street Journal), accessed November 5, 2012, http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/09/23/why-cios-desperately-need-a-technology-literate-society/?KEYWORDS=education.

Computer-Based Testing Model May Improve Writing Proficiency in Students

Computer-Based Testing Model May Improve Writing Proficiency in Students 

by Gabby Balza, Fall 2012 Intern

With answers becoming so accessible that students can find them with just a click of the mouse, it’s understandable that some may worry that technology is becoming more of a hindrance and less of an improvement to education. For students who saved their summer reading until the last minute, finding detailed book summaries has become relatively easy. With the variety of online games now being offered, a student can become distracted from that math homework that still hasn’t been started. Despite the negative reputation that technology can often earn when placed in context with the learning environment, it can also be used as a resource for students to enhance their writing skills.

This is exactly what the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a nationally representative assessment of students’ academic progress, hopes to achieve by introducing computer-based assessments of writing proficiency.  Students answer the essay questions in this test via laptop computers using prompts that include multimedia elements. The desire to appeal to a tech-savvy student population sparked the shift from paper-and-pencil tests to computer-based assessments. It seems that more teachers and instructors are trying to upgrade their tools and variety of mediums in order to keep the interest of the typical twenty-first century student.

Because of this use of technology, the governing board of the NAEP modified the assessment prompts themselves to include multimedia components. On the new writing NAEP, eighth graders are asked to imagine that they had arrived on a remote island. To help them visualize this, they were provided with audio containing nature sounds and recordings of lines read from a journal. Students used these artifacts to then compose their essays. Students who worked with computers on a daily basis performed better than those less familiar with the functions of word processors and less accustomed to using computers to edit their writing. Beverly Ann Chin, a professor of English at the University of Montana, notes: “When teachers encourage students to use word processing features on a regular basis, students learn how computers can facilitate their writing processes and improve their final product.” Hopefully these skills will help students improve their writing proficiency.

It’s an exciting possibility, and there seems to be no time like the present, since the findings from this exam revealed that only 27 percent of students in both seventh and eighth grade tested at or above the proficiency baseline in 2011. 37 percent of females in the eighth grade class scored as proficient or above, while only 18 percent of boys did.

The governing board of the NAEP hopes to raise these numbers by continuing to introduce technological skills that will help make students more successful in writing. They hope that getting students accustomed to composing and revising their written work on computers using word processors will help improve the writing proficiency among grade levels. As technology and computers continue to become essential parts of the workplace and classroom, it’s fitting that mastering these mediums will aid in the overall success of the student. As Ms. Chin also adds, “Students who are skilled in using technology tools in writing will be more successful in school, the workplace, and society.” It seems that technology is becoming less of a problem and more of a solution in this instance. 

A Step Back in Desegregation

A Step Back in Desegregation
by Gabby Balza, Fall 2012 Intern

As a Latina riding on the school bus to my predominately white elementary school, I remember the way we would all peer out the windows with our faces half hidden when the bus from the northern part of town passed by us. “That’s the school with all the black people,” someone would say, and we’d turn to her and wonder how she could be so racist. But she was right. That school didn’t have a white face in the hallways, on the soccer team or in the pictures on the school website. A lot of schools didn’t. It was an absence we wouldn’t notice in the hallways of our own school until we played them in football games or competed with them in choir events. Looking back, we never thought anything of it or held any racial prejudices. But today, it seems like more and more institutions are trying to avoid this from happening.

This is one fear currently propelling the Kentucky Supreme Court to take action. Local school boards have concluded that the decisions of where students attend schools should be left within the hands of local school boards as opposed to parents and students themselves. Officials are worried that having parents choose their “neighborhood schools” would result in resegregation. But parents aren’t pleased. Many would rather have the convenience of being able to attend school functions without the travel constraints, agreeing that the concept of a desegregation busing system is outdated. Ted Gordon, the attorney for the plaintiff’s case, states: “And is this the way you improve it, or is this the way you sell out so that we can have a black child sitting next to a white child regardless of educational outcome so everybody feels better about it?" Parents also seem to agree that diversifying the school does not guarantee an improvement in academia, but rather poses an inconvenience for parents themselves and places students in a school system they may not wish to be in.

The controversy began after a debate concerning the interchange of the terms attend and enroll. Last fall, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled that students have the right to attend the same school where they are enrolled. However, this was found to work against the assignment plan of Jefferson County Public Schools, which argued that the word attend was removed from state legislation in 1990. It was then recently concluded that students can enroll in their neighborhood schools but cannot necessarily attend them. But it seems this change in official terms has only further vexed parents, who believe that decisions made based on the color of one’s skin is only setting us all back.

Parents of students in Jefferson County have felt both powerless and determined for change following the ruling. Some, such as plaintiff Chris Fell, are being proactive; Mr. Fell is running for his child’s school board. Others have only felt more powerless over this decision, unable to sway or change the decision of the Kentucky courts. Either way, it seems that the fear of resegregation is still prevalent today in school systems, ultimately splitting parents and school board members over how to best improve and advance the education of their children and students.

Getting Serious about Physical Education

Getting Serious about Physical Education

by Rose Pleuler, Fall 2012 Intern

In high school, I tried to avoid gym. Who wanted to change into shorts in the middle of the school day, run a mile, and return to class sweaty—because who really used those showers? Not me. I had friends whose physical education requirements were waived for any reason from varsity sports to asthma. While my friends took extra nonathletic electives, I learned the nuances of badminton. I used to wonder why I had to do it.

Now I know: It wouldn’t hurt to take physical education more seriously. After all, being active hosts a number of critical advantages to students’ wellness. It builds strength, endurance, healthy bones and muscles. With the persistent problem of childhood obesity in the United States, the importance of being physically healthy cannot be overstated. Physical activity also builds self-esteem, sharpens focus, improves behavior and boosts attitude. It may even link to higher test scores! Some research indicates that students who earn mostly As are almost twice as likely to engage in regular physical activity than students who earn mostly Ds and Fs. It seems natural that these huge benefits should have a place in any school’s curriculum.

Despite the obvious advantages of physical education, many schools have trouble integrating the physical education requirement effectively into a school day. Some schools may decide that money and time should be geared toward academics, for example. However, most studies of physical education agree that at least a half hour of daily physical activity is the minimum, and this may be hard to incorporate into the flow of the school day. Additionally, because requirements of physical education can be vague, it may be too easy to exempt, substitute or waive physical education requirements. Nearly sixty percent of states allow students to complete their physical education requirements using online courses. And for younger students, a half hour recess at lunch does not always assure physical activity. Until school systems take physical education requirements more seriously, the benefits of physical education in the curriculum may not be fully recognized.

As schools try to strike the right balance, it is important to create a supportive community around physical education and health. Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association (AHA), recognizes that physical activity must become “a part of the daily routine” in order to make strides in correcting health problems in America today. Students need to be encouraged to pursue their interests in different physical activities—sports, playing outdoors, exploring. In the classroom or out, the result will be all-around healthier, happier kids.

Listen and Read

Listen and Read

by Gabby Balza, Fall 2012 Intern

“Pick out any book you want.” These are the words my preschool tutor said to me when I was seven years old and still couldn’t read. My mom had already tried everything: flashcards, bedtime stories and several programs promising increased literacy in young children. But all of them ended with me sitting on the floor still trying to pronounce banana while flashcards and magnets containing different vowels and consonants covered my body. Luckily, working with a tutor was the last stop before reading became less of a struggle and more of a favorite pastime for me. When I look back on the differences in teaching methods between the failed and successful attempts at my literacy, I can’t help but think of all the techniques that my tutor used with me involving audio and video, helping me to understand the story—not just isolated words on a flashcard. We’d sit there in front of each Dr. Seuss and Berenstain Bear book. My tutor would point to every word while I looked at the corresponding picture; she repeated each sentence three times, after which I mimicked it all back to her. Instead of flashcards sticking to my body, I now had the words actually sticking in my mind. The techniques my tutor used with me remind me of the ones used by Scholastic’s Listen and Read program and Disney’s Digital Books to help improve the reading skills of students.

Both of these products take advantage of different sensory techniques normally used by people to obtain information. Scholastic’s Listen and Read program provides photographs pertaining to the topic of each book, allowing children the opportunity to see cultural artifacts such as a hogan, which is a Navajo house made of mud and wood. The Disney Digital Books program utilizes illustrations on each page to help children visualize the characters and events taking place within a story. At the end of these books there are interactive games that pertain to each story, giving children the chance to engage with the text. Since both products cater to children’s visual needs, they allow children to experience the story environments in a more enhanced fashion.

Audio components also play a role in these products. Disney Digital Books provide recordings of the stories in multiple languages. The books also integrate musical scores from movies, such as the The Lion King’s “Hakuna Matata,” helping children to immerse themselves in the tone of the story while stimulating their creativity. Listen and Read also provides recordings for each story, a feature enabled when children click the LISTEN button on each page. This option provides an opportunity for children to listen to vocabulary as often as they need.

For young readers, these different visual and audio components are what can help a text become more than just words on a page. Being able to picture, hear and imagine the stories help children think of reading as an experience rather than an obstacle. They can go on a journey with the characters and events, and with different modes of accessibility, children can follow along whether at home on a computer or on the bus ride to school with a tablet. 




Further Reading:

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/07/listen-and-read-non-fiction-read-along.html

http://teacher.scholastic.com/commclub/index.htm

http://www.disneybookapps.com/Disney-Princess-A-Royal-Christmas.html

Freshmen in Brooklyn Already on the Career Path

Freshmen in Brooklyn Already on the Career Path

by Rose Pleuler

Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) in Brooklyn entered its second year this September, touting a unique six-year program that goes from grade 9 through grade 14, after which students graduate with an associate’s degree. The initiative began in September 2011 to develop science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills in students to better prepare them for the job market. In this program, students pursue a degree in either applied science in computer information systems or electromechanical engineering technology. Interest has grown remarkably since the program’s inception; in September of 2012, there were 600 applicants, six times the amount that applied last fall. The benefits of the program—namely, a financially feasible opportunity for a useful degree straight out of high school—is obvious to New York City families.

The program was developed in partnership with IBM, and the relationship between the school and the company is ongoing. The curriculum of the school has been developed with consultants from IBM with the desired skills of its employees in mind. From there, IBM employees helped train teachers in the curriculum and even became directly involved in students’ education through a mentorship program. By developing the program this way and providing students with positive relationships, the likelihood of a job prospect at IBM or a similar company is hugely increased. And the fiscal benefit is undeniable, especially to the students themselves: “It’s giving me the opportunity of getting my college degree without having to pay for it,” says Lamar Agard, a freshman in the program.

P-TECH is an opportunity for students who learn by doing. According to Stephen F. Hamilton, professor of human development at Cornell University, some students learn best when they are able to answer, “ ‘What does this mean? Why am I doing this?’ ” Much of the P-TECH curricula strives to answer those questions. In the program there is an emphasis to develop STEM skills, which Stanley S. Litow, president of IBM’s International Foundation, deems to be invaluable: “Because that is the problem. Too few kids have these skills.” Additionally, students develop skills in workplace learning, critical thinking and presentation skills, which even trickle down to students’ self-imposed dress codes. Some students come to school wearing ties and carrying briefcases, mindful of appearing business-like to future employers.

This program and the ones like it nationwide are not simply the difference between a low-wage job and a middle-class job—although that remarkable benefit should not be overlooked. Students at P-TECH also have big ideas for their future. These students have dream careers in mind: technology law, cardiac surgery and health technology, to name a few. The development of critical skills and the acquisition of an associate’s degree certainly put students on the path to their goals.

Further Reading

“At Technology High School, Goal isn’t to Finish in 4 Years,” The New York Times, accessed November 19, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/nyregion/pathways-in-technology-early-college-high-school-takes-a-new-approach-to-vocational-education.html?ref=education.

Early College High School Initiative, accessed November 19, 2012, http://www.earlycolleges.org.

“Julia Steiny: When a School Makes Itself Useful to Business,” EducationNews.org, accessed November 19, 2012, http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/julia-steiny-when-a-school-makes-itself-useful-to-business/.

Students Performing Better in a Responsive Classroom

Students Performing Better in a Responsive Classroom

by Eileen Neary, Intern Fall 2012

Elementary schools are saying, “Class dismissed!” to traditional lectures. The Responsive Classroom approach, a teaching technique promoting social–emotional learning strategies, was discussed this past fall at a meeting that the Society for Research on Education Effectiveness (SREE) hosted. The study, funded by the US Department of Education and conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia, found that fifth graders who were taught with the Responsive Classroom approach received higher scores on state assessments than their peers who were not taught this way. Over 2,900 students were followed in this study from second grade through fifth grade.

The Northeast Foundation for Children (NEFC), a nonprofit organization established by elementary school teachers, developed the Responsive Classroom approach in 1981; it is built upon the idea that children learn best when their social–emotional skills are developed along with their academic skills. The Responsive Classroom approach has been introduced to hundreds of schools since its start three decades ago, and, as the approach’s success grows, approximately 6,000 teachers each year attend its training workshops.

The Responsive Classroom approach is made up of ten components used in the classroom: Morning Meetings, Rule Creation, Interactive Modeling, Positive Teacher Language, Logical Consequences, Guided Discovery, Academic Choice, Classroom Organization, Working with Families and Collaborative Problem-Solving. These components help teachers use more positive language with their students and encourage collaboration with other teachers. Students in a Responsive Learning classroom receive more freedom to create classroom rules and practice self-discipline. To cater to their independence and creativity, students are given choices between different assignment activities.

The US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) were impressed by success of the Responsive Classroom approach and gave nearly $3 million toward a follow-up study on the efficacy of the program. According to ResponsiveClassroom.org, in addition to students receiving higher scores on state assessments, they have also shown “…increased academic achievement, decreased problem behaviors, and improved social skills.” Teachers, feeling more capable and optimistic about their teaching through the approach, are able to offer higher-quality instruction.

Gretchen Bukowick, a director at the NEFC, is excited by the positive results. “This helps us put some evidence behind what we believe,” she says. “Academic, social, and emotional learning all go hand in hand.” Lora Hodges, the executive director at NEFC, is especially enthusiastic that the study has proven what she believes: The Responsive Classroom approach helps “…districts and schools achieve their dual aims of increasing teacher effectiveness and improving student performance.”

Your Librarian is a Superhero

Your Librarian is a Superhero

by Rose Pleuler, Intern Fall 2012

Question everything is a principle to live by—and to learn by. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) promote inquiry-based education, thrusting students into a hands-on relationship with their education. This is a great power and responsibility, but luckily the students have help. Every school has a secret resource, trained to support students and teachers alike. Who is this mysterious superhero? The school librarian, of course.

The librarian is a resource to teachers and students alike. Librarians help teachers find primary sources and high-quality reading that will engage students in their coursework. Often certified teachers themselves, librarians have the skills to help create uniquely enriching curricula. In fact, this educational model encourages creativity and innovation in instructors, according to Marcia Mardis, assistant professor of communication and information at Florida State University. Ms. Mardis, also a former librarian and educational digital library director, maintains that the relationship between teacher and librarian becomes one of “two creative partners working together.” Teachers can create an engaging classroom environment with help from librarians and their various resources.

Librarians and teachers work together to build a curriculum that will invigorate the minds of students and provoke questions: This is the intention driving inquiry-based educational models. Students should generate questions that will enrich their understanding of the topic. Questions should be researchable and indicate a complex inquiry. “If your assignment can be answered on Google, it’s void of higher-level thought,” says Paige Jaeger, who manages 84 school libraries in the Saratoga Springs, New York, area. The journey to an answer can be as educational as the answer itself: Instead of learning the properties or the names of the planets in the solar system, students could ask, Why isn’t Pluto a planet? This is a complex question that encourages students to dig deeper.

Then begins the exploration. The student must investigate, evaluate and analyze—important CCSS verbs—and librarians know how to connect the students to the sources of their inquiry. Librarians have knowledge of an entire school’s curricula, and they can help students learn the cross-disciplinary impact of their inquiry. This type of education teaches students that life is complicated but also connected. An educational system can be connected too, when supported by the superpowers of the school librarian.

Further Reading

“Common Core Thrusts Librarians into Leadership Role,” Education Week, accessed November 19, 2012, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/09/12/03librarians_ep.h32.html?tkn=SZNFlDl7tEdDUzV%2FzJYhHsgfbFZ%2FDMT4W4Q7&cmp=clp-edweek.

“Finding Resources with Your School Librarian,” website of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), accessed November 19, 2012, http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=58729.

“Common Core Verbs,” Instructional Coach Corner, accessed November 19, 2012, http://hopemiddle.weebly.com/common-core-verbs.html.