Teachers: Looking for a part-time summer job?

We are looking for experienced teachers to help curate collections of relevant and engaging curriculum this summer. Using our growing repository of more than 46,000 lessons, units, videos, and full courses, you will work from the comfort of your own home to search for and build new collections for our community. Independent contract begins June 15 through August 15, 2012. Training provided.

Requirements:

• Two years experience in K-12 classroom
• Must have own computer
• Detailed-oriented
• Self-starter, motivated
• Some knowledge of wiki platform

Pay: $10.00 per collection

For more info and to apply: http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Jobs

May We Ask a Favor?

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

To me, there’s nothing more interesting than hearing other peoples’ stories. I find that these stories help to inspire new ways of doing and thinking.

Personally, I love hearing how you’re using Curriki –whether you’re a teacher, a parent, a student or simply someone who loves to learn.

As you may know, Curriki is honored to be named a Top Rated organization by Great Non-Profits. Would you take a moment to add a few sentences about your experience with Curriki? (It’s like adding a short review on Amazon or Yelp.) You can find reviews on the greatnonprofits site. Here’s a sampling of what people have to say:

“CURRIKI is a wonderful site that gives Teachers the opportunity to get in touch with other colleagues in order to share experiences about the use of different resources to enrich the Teaching Learning Process. It is so helpful to find different and interesant free resources for us, as Teachers from a foreign country to use.” M. A. Margarita R. Ruiz, Tech Coordinator, Instituto D’Amicis, A. C: Puebla, México

“Curriki is changing Education. It is allowing teachers, parents and students find resources to help in areas where traditional classroom education is not working. It allows for the customization of content and improves teacher effectiveness and student outcomes. Also just think of all the money that can be saved on textbooks!”

We’d love to hear what works for you and what changes you’d like to see.  Please take a moment and add your review here. Thank you!

Regards, Janet

Student Participation Tool

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

How can we effectively track student participation in class activities? Here’s a great tool for doing just that. Consider that you want to track not only how much are students participating, but also how constructive is their participation – is it truly collaborative, or is it perhaps disruptive?

This blog from Ariel Sacks describes a tool she developed for measuring participation, using the two major categories of: (1) student contribution to group learning, and (2) student management of their own conduct. The tool is described at this site, and downloadable from the same site:

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/shoulders_of_giants/2012/03/index.html

She has calibrated the tool through student self-evaluation and cross-evaluation, with good results. I recommend you take a look at this great tool!

Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

By Kim Jones, CEO of Curriki

A recent study found that American high school students are, unfortunately, reading at roughly the 5th grade level. The study looked at the most popular 40 books that grade 9 through grade 12 teens are reading and found the average grade level of this collection is just 5.3.

The report, from Renaissance Learning, is titled What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools, and is available here.

A slideshow of the top 20 books on the list, and their respective grade levels, is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/top-reading_n_1373680.html#slide

“The single most important predictor of student success in college is their ability to read a range of complex text with understanding,” writes David Coleman, a contributor to Common Core State Standards and commentator on the study. “If you examine the top 40 lists of what students are reading today in 6th–12th grade, you will find much of it is not complex enough to prepare them for the rigors of college and career.”

To help ensure your students are reading at an appropriate level for high school, there is a wealth of reading resources at Curriki. A good starting point is
http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_Group_CurrikisThematicCollections/HighSchoollevelreadingresources

Within this set of resources you will find units on The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, A Separate Peace, The Kite Runner and other novels, as well as poetry resources. (Note that April is National Poetry month in the US.) Take a look and help your students move up to an appropriate reading level.

Tell Us Your Curriki Story for a Chance to Win!

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

We just launched our Tell Us Your Curriki Story challenge and I’m excited to hear from you! This is a fun opportunity for you to tell us how Curriki has made a difference in your life, the life of a student or within a classroom. And it’s your chance to earn fame and fortune since we are awarding six prizes in total: a $100 and a $200 prize to two teachers; a $100 and a $200 prize to two students; and a $100 and a $200 prize to two schools (in addition to cool Curriki t-shirts you can proudly wear!).

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• How has Curriki helped you or changed the way you work?
• What’s your favorite Curriki resource and in what way does it benefit you?
• Have you saved valuable time (weekend or after-school) or money by leveraging Curriki resources?
• How do your students benefit?
• Have your students enjoyed a particular game, video or lesson plan?
• How have you shared and/or customized Curriki content to better meet your needs?

The deadline is May 4, 2012, so check out the details here to begin.

I look forward to seeing your entries!

Science Fair Season: Curriki can Help!

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

This is Science Fair season in many countries. In Canada, March is Youth Science Month.

http://cwsf.youthscience.ca/news/march-youth-science-month-across-canada

“Over 500,000 young Canadians do a science project every year; 25,000 participate in 100 regional science fairs – in every province and territory. Youth Science Month salutes these young Canadians and highlights the remarkable opportunities available to youth through science.”

Here are some Science Fair ideas from the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration:

http://blog.epa.gov/blog/2012/03/12/ready-for-your-science-fair-project/

Did you develop a great entry or even win at your local science fair? Google has a Science Fair 2012 competition, see:

http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/

“The Google Science Fair is an online science competition seeking curious minds from the four corners of the globe. Anybody and everybody between 13 and 18 can enter. All you need is an idea.” But hurry, since submissions are due by April 1^st.

And, there’s a great collection of resources for Science Fair projects on Curriki at:

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_cmytko/ScienceFairResources_0

Topics include:

• Getting started with science fairs
• A refresher on the principles of scientific inquiry
• “Everything you need to know about science fairs” websites
• Ideas for projects

Thanks to Christine Mytko for pulling this Curriki collection together.