Tech helps students adopt good study habits

While yesterdayâ€™s topic was about the hazards of cyberspace, below is an example that shows how technology can benefit students. Purdue University has launched a computer program called Signals for their 11,000 undergraduates that, unlike other academic warning systems, warns students when their grades are slipping before midterms roll around. Additionally, higher performing students receive positive messages when they are doing well. The results? Many of Purdue’s undergraduates are crediting Signals with keeping them on track academically, as well as helping them feel less intimidated to seek out help from their professors and campus tutoring center, and other campuses are contacting Purdue’s IT department to find out how they might be able to implement the same or something similar on their campus networks.

One of the most widely used mediums for Signals and programs like it is a Washington, D.C. based software company called Blackboard. In K-12, Blackboard operates in more than 2,200 schools where teachers primarily use it for listing homework assignments, announcements, interactive lessons and for discussion boards. According to James Kulik, who studies effectiveness of computers used for instruction, “students usually learn more in less time when receiving computer-based instruction, and they like classes more and develop more positive attitudes toward computers in computer-based classes.” Howard Gardner, Professor of Harvard University and author of Frames of Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1983) from Multimedia Book ITTE and pioneer in the field of multiple intelligences, wrote that:

“Multi-media can go along way to addressing these intelligences, much more than traditional teaching methods.”

As educators weigh technology’s impact on learning, perhaps schools should focus on the most obvious and compelling reason for implementing technology-namely, that students need strong technology skills to succeed in the world of work. Helping students interact with information technologies will be central in schools preparing K-12 students for full participation in 21st century society.

How can technology enhance student achievement?
What does the evolution of new media mean for pre-college educators?
How can we best help students filter and synthesize a plethora of incoming information?
What needs to happen in high school to get students ready for the more sophisticated demands and opportunities of using technology in college, career and life?

ARTICLE
eCampus News.com
by Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor

Purdue University is using educational technology–and online “signals”–to warn some students that their grades are dropping, offer study-habit suggestions, and provide positive reinforcement to students who are acing quizzes and exams.

When students log into their Blackboard course management accounts this fall, they’ll see frequently updated feedback indicators similar to traffic lights indicating their standing in each class.

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Empathy in the Virtual World

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Within a philosophical context, theÂ writer below explores the hazards of cyberspace onÂ empathy, andÂ theÂ illustration that accompanies the text reveals the crux ofÂ Dr. Gorry’sÂ essay:Â Is digital technology taking the heart right out of us?Â Â

Author of Born to Learn, Rita Smilkerstein, found in her research thatÂ all learning is linked to emotion, and among the digital generation we need to find ways to impart not only academic but social and emotional skills so that we engage both the mind and the heart of students.Â This is theÂ precise aim of LifeBound’s books, particularly our text, People Smarts for Teenagers:Â Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, which has data-proven results to increase scholastic achievement while promoting qualities like empathy and motivation.

Dr. Gorry postulates thatÂ theÂ virtual worldÂ has so permeated our conscious and unconscious selves that it might be making us numb to the “real suffering of others.”Â Â The bombardment of so many problems worldwide can diffuse a sense of responsibility to actually do something about the plight of what we see and hear.Â

The concept of friendship, for example, has enjoyed a renewed prominenceÂ via social networks that have emerged in the last few years,Â namely Facebook and MySpace.Â This is born out of a universal human desire to connect to other people and is perhaps one of the noblest achievements of human culture.Â It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as human beings.Â We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of genuine friendship. It would beÂ sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation.Â Almost any parent of a teenager can give an account ofÂ the difficulty students have tuning out their iPods and cell phones and tuning in to their parents or siblings.Â If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development.Â Even more troubling, social sites have become a breedingÂ groundÂ for cyberbullying and have made it easier for pedophiles to access vulnerable adolescents.Â

The digital world demands our attention in part by speeding up the pace of life, and the addictive nature of media multitasking takes away time and energy from something of far more value:Â human interaction.Â It’s the trap ofÂ emergency living, paying attention to the immediateÂ rather than thinking more deeply aboutÂ things like goals and the quality of our relationships and acting on those impulses to do something bigger than busyness.

Researchers at Stanford University released a reportÂ thisÂ summer regarding multitaskers of media activities like watching YouTube, writing e-mail and talking on the phone.Â What they found is that theyÂ are not very good at any of their tasks.Â After testing about 100 Stanford students, the scientists concluded that chronic media multitaskers have difficulty focusing and are not able to ignore irrelevant information.

At their best, teaching and learning aren’t purely academic pursuits; they are methodsÂ that promote a betterÂ planet.Â New technologies have tremendous power for good in the world and can be put at the service of humanity to promote tolerance and understanding among communities, especially for those who are exploited.Â Here then are serious questions to ponder:

How can we harness the power of technologyÂ toÂ foster human interactionÂ rather than compete with it?

What potential of the new technologies can be used to promote human understanding and solidarity, especially for those who are most disadvantagedÂ and vulnerable in our world?

What can educators do to transfer technology in such a way that it fosters empathy rather than detracts from it?

ARTICLE

Chronicle of Higher Education

By G. Anthony Gorry

We live increasingly “on the screen,” deeply engaged with the patterns of light and energy upon which so much of modern life depends. At work we turn our backs to our coworkers, immersing ourselves in the flood of information engendered by countless computers. At the end of the workday, computers tag along with us in cellphones and music players. Still others, embedded in video displays, wait at home. They are all parts of an enormous electronic web woven on wires or only air.

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A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like

As the article below iterates, some schools nationwide are forming reading workshops which allow students the freedom to select their own books rather than the traditional approach of assigning a classic that the entire class reads together. Critics of this approach are concerned that children won’t be exposed to classic literature because they’ll gravitate toward books that are trendy or popular.

This debate begs the question: What is the goal of reading in school and for that matter what is the goal of educating our children? Educational reformer John Dewey said, “The most important attitude that can be formed is that of a desire to learn and go learning.” As most educators agree, a passion for learning isn’t something you have to inspire kids to have; most children are innately curious. Author Alfie Kohn writes, “Anyone who cares about this passion will want to be sure that all decisions about what and how children are taught, every school-related activity and policy is informed by the question: “How will this affect children’s interest in learning, and promote their desire to keep reading, and thinking and exploring?”

Several months into the experiment, the English teacher at Jonesboro Middle School in a south Atlanta suburb says, â€œI feel like almost every kid in my classroom is engaged in a novel that theyâ€™re actually interacting with. Whereas when I do â€˜To Kill a Mockingbird,â€ I know that I have some kids that just donâ€™t get into it.â€

Perhaps a middle-road approach could be implemented where children are allowed to choose books, and so is the teacher. It’s best to teach reading in a way that mixes free choices with great literature. We want to trust students enough to give them some leeway in making decisions at school, which might help promote a lifelong love of reading while also exposing them to some of the reading â€œgreatsâ€ from throughout time.

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ARTICLE:
A New Assignement: Pick Books You Like
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: August 29, 2009
The New York Times

JONESBORO, Ga. â€” For years Lorrie McNeill loved teaching â€œTo Kill a Mockingbird,â€ the Harper Lee classic that many Americans regard as a literary rite of passage.

But last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42, did not assign â€œMockingbirdâ€ â€” or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb.

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SAT scores show disparities by race, gender, family income

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Average scores on the SAT college entrance exam dipped slightly for the high school class of 2009, while gender, race, and income gaps widened, according to figures released August 25th by the College Board. While College Board stresses that “students who had completed a core curriculum, taken their school’s most rigorous courses and familiarized themselves with the test were among the strongest performers,” they don’t address why some groups consistently outperform others on standardized tests.

Yale professor Robert Sternberg’s concept of Successful Intelligence, which looks at broadening the definition of intelligence and creating new tools to measure it, considers more than verbal and mathematical abilities by examining creativity, initiative and leadership skills. Some of the students who score lower on tests like the SAT may exhibit high levels of emotional and social intelligence in their every day activities, but these abilities aren’t as easy to measure from a paper and pencil exam even though they are predictor’s of success in college, career and life. Sternberg’s concern is for students who don’t test well: “[they] never get the chance to show what they really could do in important jobs,” Sternberg said last year in an interview with PBS. Here are questions to consider:

How can we reliably measure aptitudes like social and emotional skills?

Why are Asian-Americans scoring higher than other students on the SAT?

What can we do on a school by school level to close these gaps between gender, race and income?

ARTICLE
USA Today
By Mary Beth Marklein
Average national SAT scores for the high school class of 2009 dropped two points compared with last year, a report out today says. And while the population of test takers was the most diverse ever, average scores vary widely by race and ethnicity.

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Md. Accelerator Schools To Speed Pupils To Diploma

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
In Baltimore, Maryland, three new accelerator schools have opened this year to helping struggling high school students graduate on time. As the article below reports, the school system has hired a consulting firm, One Bright Ray, which has also successfully established two other alternative schools based in Philadelphia. According to the Alternative Schools Project, funded in 2001 by the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education, there are more than 20,000 alternative schools in operation in the United States.

The ASCD, a national membership organization devoted to school reform, reports the national drop out rate at 1 out of 3 students and almost half for minorities. This means in a classroom of 30 freshmen, 9 will drop out, typically between their freshman and sophomore years. By the time they are 18 years old, only 10 will have the skills necessary to succeed in a job or master college-level work; 4 will be unemployed; 3 will end up on government assistance; and 2 will have no health insurance. Even more dismally, drops outs are eight times more likely to go to jail. When students are asked why they quit school, the majority say “boredom.”

What can educators do to inspire students and help them create a vision for their future?

What else can we do to not only place these students on a trajectory for success but motivate them to persist with their educational and career goals?

What can policy makers and school leaders do to establish student success and transition programs in every school so that students get off to the best start possible?

How can we best prepare students so they’re ready for the world beyond formal education?

We all pay when students don’t learn and achieve at their highest potentials. As educators and parents, we must teach students that they are important and unique and that their impact on the world is priceless.

ARTICLE
AARON MORRISON, Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE (AP) â€• Shane Smith is already two years behind in school. But as he started classes Monday at a new high school, he planned to speed through his freshman and sophomore years in nine months.

That’s a tough order for a 16-year-old who should be in the 11th grade but has struggled academically, in part due to the death of his father when he was a boy.

However, organizers of one of Baltimore’s three new accelerator schools say frequent testing, extracurricular activities and high expectations will get students such as Smith on track and keep them there.

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Site Spurs Debate Over Required Courses

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Coinciding with the recent release of “America’s Best Colleges” from US NEWS & WORLD REPORT comes another ranking system, this one based on course requirements at 100 leading colleges and universities nationwide. Sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, you can view assessments at www.WhatWillTheyLearn.com, where their home page reads: “A guide to what college rankings don’t tell you.” Anyone seeking a well-rounded way of viewing the admissions and selections process would do well to read this.

The web site assesses curriculum requirements coordinated to 21st Century Skills in these seven areas of competencies: Composition, Mathematics, Science, Economics, Foreign Language, Literature, and American Government or History. Whether this is an accurate barometer of the quality of education at various institutions one thing is for sure: To compete in today’s global world students must acquire and implement the requisite critical and creative thinking skills, which employers often bemoan today’s graduates lack.

High school principals need to ask: Where and how are these core competencies relayed, cross-referenced and reinforced? In what ways do students connect the learning in these areas to other key areas of their livesâ€”what they have experienced and what they can imagine experiencing? How interesting are teachers in the ways in which they engage students on these issues through learn-by-doing exercises, discussions and exploration?

LifeBoundâ€™s new book, Critical and Creative Thinking, features these competencies in ways that are reinforced in college, career and life. To order a review copy, go on line to www.lifebound.com.

ARTICLE
Ecampus News

Should American colleges and universities require students to take courses in certain core subjects considered important to a 21st-century education, such as science, economics, history, and foreign languages? It’s a question that has taken on added significance in light of a new web site that grades higher-education institutions according to whether they require these core courses in their general-education curricula.

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Money Management to be Taught at Some Massachusetts Schools

As the article below indicates, our nation’s recession is pressing schools to include personal finance in their curriculum. The aim is to help students learn valuable lessons about finance and credit before they get into debt. According to the Richmond Credit Abuse Resistant Education Program, the number of 18- to 24-year- olds who declare bankruptcy has increased 96 percent over the past decade. Seventy percent of employers look at the credit histories of job candidates. In some fields, like law enforcement, bad credit means you cannot get a job.

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What Do Electronic Textbooks Mean for the Educational Publishing Industry?

Todayâ€™s story about digital textbooks comes from the front page of the New York Times. According to the story, many educators and pundits predict the complete demise of traditional paper textbooks within the next decade.Â California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger calls traditional textbooks â€œantiquated, heavy (and) expensiveâ€ and hopes to implement electronic texts for many math and science classes in his state.Â Given the advent of online textbooks, the publishing industry needs to adapt and evolve â€“ whether e-textbooks constitute 10% or 100% of books used by students in the future.

But how can publishers react to such a fundamental shift in the business model?Â To compete, publishers need to be able to create electronic textbooks that address the issues that educators have with the print version: high cost, static learning tactics and inability to engage all types of learning styles.Â In addition, publishers must consider the practical aspects of teaching: will these e-texts free up instructor time or make it possible for colleges to hire fewer educators?Â If not, then the true goal of interactive online texts has not been reached.

Upon closer examination, perhaps the benefits presented by the e-text format make the challenges look less bleak.Â If publishers can become proficient at creating high quality, high interaction e-texts for students, their variable cost per unit sold will essentially drop to zero â€“ no more printing costs, no more ink, simply the creation of an e-delivery system or an inexpensive CD-ROM.Â Additionally, the advent of electronic texts will allow publishers to be much more nimble â€“ facts, statistics, activities and other content can be updated with a quick software fix or a simple adjustment to units sold going forward.

Â In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History

In California, high school interns try out digital “flexbooks” created by the CK-12 Foundation.

By TAMAR LEWIN

At Empire High School in Vail, Ariz., students use computers provided by the school to get their lessons, do their homework and hear podcasts of their teachersâ€™ science lectures.

Down the road, at Cienega High School, students who own laptops can register for â€œdigital sectionsâ€ of several English, history and science classes.

And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create â€” and share â€” lessons that incorporate their own PowerPoint presentations, along with videos and research materials they find by sifting through reliable Internet sites.

Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions â€” or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web.

â€œKids are wired differently these days,â€ said Sheryl R. Abshire, chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in Lake Charles, La. â€œTheyâ€™re digitally nimble. They multitask, transpose and extrapolate. And they think of knowledge as infinite.

â€œThey donâ€™t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote,â€ Dr. Abshire continued. â€œTeachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.â€

Improving Classroom Standards

Today’s piece is third in a four-part report by the George Lucas Educational Foundation (yes, that George Lucas) that outlines steps to improving public education in the U.S.Â The report contends that states should avoid ratcheting down education standards to meet the level of their students – instead, they should move their students’ skill level up by any means necessary.

Especially crucial in today’s article is the mention of college dropout rates.Â In New Jersey, more than half of new college students drop out due to the fact that they are not mentally and personally prepared for the challenges that college presents.Â With huge numbers of college students needing remedial classes in order to keep up, this statistic raises an important point: are our current educational standards sufficient to create students who are successful in college and their career?

Clearly, educational standards need to incorporate life skills like problem solving, critical thinking, careful decision making, and financial literacy in order to fully prepare students for higher education.Â But with so much bandwidth focused on preparing students for tests and raising graduation rates, it is crucial to find ways to empower teachers to achieve these goals.

The movement to create national education standards, while still in its infancy, promises exciting new developments for our public schools.Â However, standards can be both a helpful benchmark and also a limiting factor.Â In order to adapt to these new standards, educators must develop the flexibility to make them work for the unique needs of their students.Â Teachers should avoid simply trying to help students meet standards and pass tests- they should be fostering their own creativity by looking for ways to develop 21st century skills, incorporate technology in their curricula and foster emotionally intelligent students prepared for college, career and life.

Education-Stimulus Priority: Improve Classroom Standards

Several states are modeling innovative efforts to determine what children should learn by the end of their senior year.

by Alexandra R. Moses

States aren’t too far behind the curve when it comes to raising standards. That has been part of No Child Left Behind, and 37 states are matching their standards with college and career demands, according to Achieve, a nonprofit group that works with states on standards. And though each state gets to set its own standards, there are some common guidelines for what students should know to be successful after high school.

The Administration’s Requirement

States need tougher guidelines for what students should know in subjects such as math, science, language arts, and history at specific points in their education. That means tougher classes, a broader list of courses, and strengthened graduation requirements.

But the Obama administration also wants all students to be ready for college. For states, that means closing gaps in achievement and making sure English-language learners and special education and low-income students have the same access to education as middle-class and upper-class college-bound kids.

How It Might Look

Federal standards don’t exist, but there’s a push to create a common core of standards that all states could use, says Scott Montgomery of the Council of Chief State School Officers. ACT, the College Board, and Achieve are collaborating on that common core of standards and hope to have much of it done this year, he says.

One recommendation for improving standards includes assessing how well state’s college-prep classes actually prepare students for college. States need to be specific about what’s required. For instance, instead of asking kids to take three years of math, state standards should specify courses such as algebra, geometry, and algebra II, according to the American Diplomacy Project, which works on college readiness.

To help close achievement gaps, schools also need to make accommodations for different learning styles. That might mean longer school days or new curricula that weave reading lessons into all subjects.

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Cash for AP Test Scores: Is This Really the Best Option?

Today’s article from the New York Times focuses on a controversial topic: paying students to excel on tests. The New York-based “Reach” program has had moderate success, with increased numbers of students taking Advanced Placement exams as well as greater numbers of students achieving “4” or “5” scores. Â While it is admirable to encourage students to do well academically and prepare for college, the concept of paying students for their scores on AP exams has several serious shortcomings.

Money talks – but what does it say?

The concept of the Reach program is simple: it connects people who have money (the program’s founders) with people who want money (the students).Â But is handing cash over to teenagers really the best alternative?Â No.

It is important to consider the ultimate goal here: preparing students for college and career. If Reach is trying to encourage students to go to college, why not use the $1,000 to create a scholarship or educational savings account?Â What about a laptop that students could use in their college classes?Â Instead, young students are given the freedom to spend the money as they see fit – and in all likelihood, the money isn’t going straight into a college savings fund.

By handing cash over to students when they meet the expectations set by the AP board, what message is the Reach program sending?Â In my mind, the message is simple and risky: You will be rewarded for meeting expectations.Â In their future careers, students won’t be handed bonuses, promotions or praise for simply meeting expectations.Â Quite the opposite: students need to be taught to exceed expectations consistently – even if they think no one is watching or no reward is expected.Â Â In fact, if future employers perceive these students as “all about the money”, they will be less likely to invest in mentoring and promoting them.

In Program Giving Cash, More Pass AP Tests

By JENNIFER MEDINA

Published: August 4, 2009

A program that offers students up to $1,000 for passing Advanced Placement exams has shown some success, with more students at 31 city high schools earning passing scores, according to officials in charge of the effort.

The program, called Reach, or Rewarding Achievement, involves students at 26 public and 5 Catholic schools with large minority enrollments. The number of students passing A.P. exams at those schools rose this year to 1,240 from 1,161.

The number of tests taken at those schools â€” many students take tests in multiple subjects â€” increased by more than 800, to 5,436, and the number of passing grades by 302, to 1,774. The passing rate edged up slightly, to 33 percent from 32.

The program is one of several local and national experiments using financial incentives to raise student achievement. Another New York City program that pays students for doing well on standardized tests has been underway for two years, but the city has not announced any results.

Although such programs have proliferated in recent years, there has been little evidence of their effectiveness. The results of the privately funded $2 million Reach program are scheduled to be announced Wednesday, and organizers say they are confident the results will help them secure more money.

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