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Teachers, Do You Feel Alone in the Classroom?

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

Have you ever wished you had a group of peers with whom you could regularly exchange new ideas or ask how they’re using a particular technology in the classroom?

Surprisingly, compared to educators around the world, U.S. teachers work largely in isolation, and engage less often in collaborative efforts, according to TALIS, a 34-country survey of 100,000 teachers and principals conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2013.

The relationships you build with teachers in the classroom next door, or at a school across the country, allow you to exchange ideas with educators from diverse backgrounds, draw on best practices, and benefit from a source of fresh, new ideas.

Meet Me at Curriki: A Place for Global Collaboration

With Curriki, it’s easy to improve teacher collaboration around curriculum, instruction and professional development with hundreds of like-minded educators around the world.

Curriki provides an easy and intuitive collaborative platform that includes personal profiles, blogs, discussions, and resource sharing. Communities (groups) can be created and linked for closer collaboration. Here are some of the things you can do:

• Teachers and administrators can share best practices, information on what’s working, and support each other across schools, districts, states, the country, and even around the world.
• Schools and districts can create professional learning communities and practice groups, improve teacher and principal quality and technology skills, and provide mentoring and support.
• Colleges can use edWeb.net to support their teacher education programs and to stay connected to cohorts of new teachers as they move on to their teaching positions and begin their careers. Faculty in any department can use edWeb.net to connect with peers anywhere in the world.

In a recent interview with Educator Ilna Colemere, who helps familiarize student teachers with technology applications they can use in the classroom, her recommendation to her student teachers is to join Curriki Groups as a place where they can collaborate on specific topics, get new ideas and share best practices. For example, one group she always recommends they join is the STEM Group.

Other Curriki groups include Teach for America Teachers, Indian Educators, Spanish for Grades 6-8, and so many more. We encourage you to check them out!

Join Curriki today (it’s easy and it’s free) and connect with teachers around the world to enrich your students’ learning experience.

 

No Child Left Behind being replaced by Every Child Achieves

Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

The “Every Child Achieves Act” (ECAA) has passed the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly with the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Approval of similar legislation is expected in the House (which has called their bill the Student Success Act). The original ESEA act from 1965 was focused on addressing equity, at a time when civil rights and desegregation were in focus.

Every Child Achieves Act of 2015
This bill reauthorizes and amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The bill addresses issues such as accountability and testing requirements, distribution and requirements for grants, fiscal accountability requirements, and the evaluation of teachers. The bill provides states with increased flexibility and responsibility for developing accountability systems, deciding how federally required tests should be weighed, selecting additional measures of student and school performance, and implementing teacher evaluation systems.

ECAA is designed to replace the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act for elementary and secondary education which has been in force since 2002. You can find a summary of the bill here.

There has been much criticism of the extensive – many would say onerous – testing regimes enforced by NCLB, from educators and parents across the U.S. It was felt that the testing requirements were excessive, and took away from time that should be spent in teaching and learning in the classroom, and that the penalties were counter-productive. The American Federation of Teachers has called NCLB a “test-and-punish” system, due to federal sanctions against low-performing schools.

ECAA would relax these testing requirements, and provide more flexibility for schools to allow parents to opt their kids out of tests. Federal sanctions would no longer apply; any such rewards or sanctions would be handled by individual states.
The President of the National Education Association, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, says about the ECAA, “This bill reflects a paradigm shift away from the one-size-fits-all assessments that educators know hurt students, diminish learning, narrow the curriculum and that they fought to change.”

The well-known education activist Diane Ravitch supports the Senate bill because “it draws a close to the punitive methods of NCLB….(and) is an important step forward for children, teachers, and public education. The battle over ‘reform’ now shifts to the states.”

One concern is that the bill would weaken provisions meant to track the progress of students with disabilities, which may account for one in eight of America’s school children.

We’d like to hear your view, what do you think about the new legislation?

Curriki is all in favor of flexible learning models and curricula that adapt to the needs of individual students. This is why we make available to the public for free over 62,000 educational resources, in open source format. These include full courses, lessons and many supplemental materials. With our new website coming on line early next month, it will be even easier to search these materials, and also to contribute materials so that other educators can make use of them.

Recess in Kansas – Too Short?

By Kim Jones, CEO, Curriki

According to an article this week from the Associated Press, elementary students in public schools in the State of Kansas have only 20 minutes or less for their daily recess.

The Kansas State Department of Education and the state’s Association for Physical Education, Recreation and Dance presented their research findings this month to the Kansas State Board of Education.

The Kansas Health Foundation supported the study. Jeff Willett, the vice president for programs and advocacy at the foundation noted that “Far from taking time from learning, these healthy habits (physical activity) actually help kids succeed in school”. Physical activity supports mental activity and improved learning.

Children at recess in Hanoi, Vietnam

There are concerns nationwide in the U.S. about childhood obesity and the level of fitness of children. According to the National Youth Fitness Survey in 2012, only one quarter of preteens and young teens are getting an hour or more of physical activity per day.

Teachers and parents should be encouraging sufficient recess periods during the school day.

Lessons plans around fitness, exercise and nutrition can be found here on Curriki:

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_Group_CurrikiMonthlyThematicCollections/KidsgovExerciseFitnessandNutrition

and also here:

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_kathyf/FitnessforLife

Classroom Technology for New Teachers

By Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer, Curriki

I had an interesting chat with Educator Ilna Colemere, who helps familiarize student teachers with technology applications they can use in the classroom. Her students love the Curriki site, because they say it “provides a wealth of resources indexed by several searchable tags.”

Ilna Colemere

As Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Office of Teacher Education Services with the University of Texas at San Antonio, Ilna works with about 500 students each year.

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How important do you feel technology is in aiding student learning?

Technology adds another dimension that isn’t available with a book or other tangible object. It can be used by one person or shared across a group – and the group doesn’t even need to be in the same room. Multimedia technologies can be very rich, community-driven resources that provide real-time learning.

However, it’s important to remember that the strength of student success with new technology does not lie in the device, software or app. The strength lies in the instructional facilitator and his/her ability to guide and encourage thinking outside the box. The teacher is the key and the technology is another tool.

What do you feel is the single, most impactful technology employed in classrooms today?

There really isn’t one single technology, especially with new technologies coming out every day. Handheld devices and robotics are popular in classrooms today. And there’s a huge push for students to learn coding, which is a valuable skill that involves a lot of logic.

Multimedia is everywhere. It attacks all the senses, and it’s instantaneous. Speaking of multimedia, MIT has developed software that captures the vibration of an object to determine the impact of noise levels on living and nonliving objects – an activity that involves math, science, social studies and technology. If we’re able to apply this to seismic activity, perhaps one day it could be used to predict earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. True example of thinking outside the box!

Technology can be both good and bad. We must make sure the resources are credible and support ISTE standards. Be a good digital citizen.

How has Curriki helped new teachers better engage their students?

The assumption is that all young people are tech savvy, but that’s not always true. We’re seeing all levels of proficiency and exposure – some are technology experts, others struggle. Because our student teachers are new to the teaching profession, it’s difficult for them to look at teaching materials with a critical eye.

That’s why Curriki is so useful. Curriki is a multimedia treasure. All the materials have been vetted by teachers, each with a different voice and perspective. Curriki gives student teachers a good idea of standards and answers their questions: “Is this resource valued?” and “Will this meet my teaching objectives?”

What are your favorite Curriki resources?

I like the technology workshops. And I like the ability to save curated resources in “My Curriki” so that I can easily find them again.

I also use the resources that relate to [state of] Texas, even if we are not Common Core, because they focus on a central core of knowledge and skills.

And finally, I recommend Curriki Groups to my student teachers as a place where they can collaborate on specific topics, get new ideas and share best practices. For example, one group I recommend they join is the STEM Group.

How do you accommodate different learning styles?

Not everyone learns the same way and our new teachers don’t want to have to visit dozens of sites to find the different resources they need. Curriki has everything in one place using all forms of media, from lesson plans and units to curated resources. And because all these resources have been vetted by “real” teachers, Curriki gives these new teachers the confidence in the material to meet instructional needs.

Why do you do what you do?

I’ve been an educator for 40+ years, having taught from pre-K to adjunct at the university. I believe the role of a teacher is to empower students to learn for themselves.

If you could tell teachers one thing about Curriki, what would it be?

Sign up for Curriki! It’s only takes a minute and it’s free. Curriki provides a rich collection of cross-curricular materials easily integrated with the adopted state curriculum. Plus, you’ll be able to collaborate with other teachers and use, share and customize the thousands of resources available on Curriki.

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