Thanks
to each of you for what you do everyday for our teachers and our students.
Super Teacher's Job is Never Done!
Photo courtesy of DiscoveryEducation.com
Saturday, May 11, 2013
In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week...
...a note of thanks!
Behind
every successful person is a teacher who made a difference.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Transition your classes smoothly...
...with tips from this article!Celebrating the Positives Eases the Transition
Bill Ivey
During the course of her spring student-led conference, absolutely predictably, Georgia made me cry. Her first conference as a seventh grader was still clear in my mind, as she sat there asking me what to do next and wondering what the point was. I knew she'd grown a lot academically and socially over the past two years, especially in self-confidence. But she sailed through the conference, not only acknowledging her strengths matter-of-factly but also facing up to her challenges with honesty and a genuine willingness to keep working on them. We reached the end, and she said, "What do I do with my binder?" I told her she could keep it, if she wanted, as it was her last middle school conference. "That's right," she said, eyes widening. "Wow."
Often, my advisees realize during these spring conferences that the Moving Up Ceremony, which seemed so comfortingly far in the future in early September, is fast approaching. So as they navigate the final few weeks of school, we work hard to give them opportunities to focus on and enjoy their remaining time in this particular iteration of our learning community, while maintaining the natural flow of things and keeping focus in the classroom to the best of our ability.
Social Transitions
Besides conversations in advisory, we find a series of traditions helps ease the transition. Founders' Day in early May is a special day off from classes just for our middle schoolers, proposed a decade ago by the founding students when we opened the program. Although they plan the day from scratch each year, it has evolved into a routine of breakfast, movie, tie-dying t-shirts that will be signed by everyone over the next few days, lunch, and an afternoon of Capture the Flag and other outdoor games. Nine days later, the entire school takes Spearth Day (Spring-Earth Day) off to spend the morning doing community service, the afternoon attending a talent show, and then roaming through carnival-style booths. During the final week, we have a school trip to Six Flags (established by the founders), the eighth grade Moving Up Ceremony, the final dance concert, and several other events focused on our seniors, all culminating in commencement.
Keeping Academic Focus
Meanwhile, classes do continue. In my own classroom, the students design units, choosing themes, related questions, and books democratically. Currently, we are beginning a unit on aesthetics built around the theme question, "Why does beauty matter or exist?" This year's students seem particularly excited by how much better their questions are now than they were at the beginning of the year, and even with the sun’s warm invitation to come outside and play, several were beginning to choose their projects before the unit even formally started. As with planning their own special days off, giving students a voice in planning their academic work around their own questions and ideas can help keep them engaged and focused.
In an Ideal World
If we were not constrained by classes we share with the upper school, I would suggest we take the final two weeks for special multi-disciplinary mini courses built around student and faculty interests. My junior high in Amherst, MA, did this way back in the 1970s, and it was always one of my favorite parts of the year. Our eight periods were combined into four double-length blocks, and each student chose from a list of offerings sorted by period. While students didn’t lead courses in my school, we could offer suggestions, and I can easily envision a model in which students and teachers co-teach some of the classes or the student(s) does the bulk of the teaching while the adult provides supervision for the class and support for the “student-teacher(s).”
Farewell Eighth Graders
It's always sad to end a year and dissolve a specific learning community, but with classes that engage students and activities designed to ease the transition, our students are generally ready by the time the last notes of the exit music for commencement fade.
If only the faculty were ready to see them go.
Bill Ivey is middle school dean at Stoneleigh-Burnham, an all-girls school in Greenfield, MA. He teaches Humanities 7, French 2, and Middle and Upper School Rock Bands. He is also proud to be a middle schooler at heart.
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Monday, May 6, 2013
Keeping Kids Moving = Keeping Kids Engaged!
Hi All!
Below is a great (and short) article about keeping students engaged by keeping them moving.
Keep this in mind as we start winding down the school year – kids are starting to get antsy, so let them move on your terms!
Learning stations, 10/2, Using the promethean board – so many options!
Enjoy!
Best,
Kay
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Top 5 Tips from Ron Clark Academy!
Happy weekend!
I was reading this article on PrometheanPlanet.com to get some ideas on how to keep the kids engaged these last couple of weeks.
Below is a link to an article they wrote after visiting The Ron Clark Academy about the Top 5 things they thought were awesome teaching methods.
Enjoy!
Saturday, May 4, 2013
NPR Story on Female Programmers...
I thought some of our tech teachers here might like to share this
with their guys and girls!
Ramin Rahimian for NPR
This story is part of our series, The Changing Lives of Women.
Sarah Allen has been the only woman on a team of computer programmers a few times in the more than two decades she has worked in the field. Most notably, she led the team — as the lone female programmer — that created Flash video, the dominant technology for streaming video on the Web.
Since only about 20 percent of all programmers are women, her experience isn't uncommon, and now she's trying to bring more women into the field.
![Sarah Allen works with interns Lori Hsu (left) and Fito von Zastrow at the Blazing Cloud offices in San Francisco.]( "Sarah Allen works with interns Lori Hsu (left) and Fito von Zastrow at the Blazing Cloud offices in San Francisco.")
A little over four years ago, Allen founded Blazing Cloud, which does design and development of software for mobile devices. The company's mix of 10 programmers and designers work with entrepreneurs and help them take an idea and turn it into software that works.
Recently they met with Estee Solomon Gray, the founder of a company called Mmindd. Solomon Gray is trying to create a sort of next-generation calendar that better reflects people's priorities. Allen and her team help Solomon Gray visualize what her software might look like. Allen will then help Solomon Gray design and build a product.
"Her vision is maybe two years out, and our task is: How do we come up with a thing that we might build in a few months that would get this started?" Allen says.
Allen's experience as a programmer and developer is part of what got her this job, but Solomon Gray says Blazing Cloud also has a diverse team, and she didn't find that elsewhere.
"I was really surprised by how many design — let alone development — firms had women as window dressing: one woman on the team, and it turns out she's the salesperson," Solomon Gray says. "After a few of those, I started to get really upset."
Allen nods her head as she listens to Solomon Gray. She's well aware that many firms claim they can't find qualified women programmers. They say it's hard because only about 20 percent of the profession is female. Allen, whose firm is made up equally of men and women, doesn't buy it.
"If you're interviewing people for your job, and you haven't interviewed a woman, don't hire until you've at least interviewed one woman. And if your recruiter can't get you resumes that are diverse, find another recruiter," she says.
When asked if she has ever experienced sexism, Allen doesn't want to talk about it in those terms.
"I don't think you can be a woman in our society and not experience sexism, so, sure, but that's not the point," she says.
Actually, Allen says, being a programmer has been a great career for her as a mom. Allen is married and has a 15-year-old son. "The women that I went to college with who are lawyers or doctors had a much harder time raising a family. They have to be there at certain times. I had an incredible amount of freedom, especially because I worked as a coder when I was a new mom and then I can work whenever I want, wherever I want," she says.
Making Magic
Allen got interested in computers when she was 12. Her mom was one of the first women to sell the Apple II, and she brought one home. Allen read the manual and taught herself to write simple programs. She says it seemed like magic to her: "I could wave my hands, and I could create this pattern in the machine, and then this thing exists that didn't exist before."
Allen graduated from Brown University in 1990 with a degree in computer science. A few years back, Allen starting going to workshops to learn a hot programming language called Ruby on Rails. Twitter was developed with it. Allen got really frustrated when she noticed that out of 200 people, only six were women. Allen and a friend started their own workshops; they were on weekends and had child care.
"We both tweeted about it. She posted to the San Francisco Women on the Web, and in less than 24 hours, we had a waiting list, and we've really proven that demand is not a problem," she says. "Every single workshop we've ever held has had a waiting list."
Since they began in 2009, the workshops — they call them RailsBridge — have drawn thousands of women, among them Lillie Chilen. Chilen was an art history and opera major in college. A lot of programming workshops felt uncomfortable.
"It can be intimidating not to have that context up front that says, 'We welcome you,' " Chilen says.
The RailsBridge workshops felt different. "It gives you a very focused opportunity to learn something and then also be a part of this network that just wants to help you do whatever you want to do next," she says.
U.S. Army Ester Gerston and Gloria Ruth Gordon, early programmers working on the ENIAC computer in 1946.
Finding A Path In Programming
Now, Allen is also working with minority groups such as Black Founders to teach more people Ruby on Rails.
"If we persist in this notion that the people who should be making software in our world are these people with low social skills who are hard to understand, we're going to miss the boat," Allen says. "We're not going to be able to solve the problems we need to solve if we don't have just lots of people who know about the rest of the world."
On the wall of Allen's office is a large photo of the ENIAC computer from 1946. It's large and dark. There are two women next to it in bright dresses moving some electrical cords. When a photo of the ENIAC appeared in Life magazine the women weren't identified.
"They thought they were like refrigerator ladies, that they were props to make the machine look more attractive," Allen says. Actually, they were early programmers Ester Gerston and Gloria Ruth Gordon.
Allen says the number of women who major in computer science has actually been going down. She hopes that making women in the field more visible to each other will help young women see that there is a path for them in what is one of the fastest growing professions in the world.
Blazing The Trail For Female Programmers
Sarah Allen, CEO of Blazing Cloud, works with user experience designer Anton Zadorozhnyy in the company's offices in San Francisco.
Sarah Allen, CEO of Blazing Cloud, works with user experience designer Anton Zadorozhnyy in the company's offices in San Francisco.
Sarah Allen has been the only woman on a team of computer programmers a few times in the more than two decades she has worked in the field. Most notably, she led the team — as the lone female programmer — that created Flash video, the dominant technology for streaming video on the Web.
Since only about 20 percent of all programmers are women, her experience isn't uncommon, and now she's trying to bring more women into the field.
Sarah Allen works with interns Lori Hsu (left) and Fito von Zastrow at the Blazing Cloud offices in San Francisco.
Sarah Allen works with interns Lori Hsu (left) and Fito von Zastrow at the Blazing Cloud offices in San Francisco.
Recently they met with Estee Solomon Gray, the founder of a company called Mmindd. Solomon Gray is trying to create a sort of next-generation calendar that better reflects people's priorities. Allen and her team help Solomon Gray visualize what her software might look like. Allen will then help Solomon Gray design and build a product.
"Her vision is maybe two years out, and our task is: How do we come up with a thing that we might build in a few months that would get this started?" Allen says.
Allen's experience as a programmer and developer is part of what got her this job, but Solomon Gray says Blazing Cloud also has a diverse team, and she didn't find that elsewhere.
"I was really surprised by how many design — let alone development — firms had women as window dressing: one woman on the team, and it turns out she's the salesperson," Solomon Gray says. "After a few of those, I started to get really upset."
Allen nods her head as she listens to Solomon Gray. She's well aware that many firms claim they can't find qualified women programmers. They say it's hard because only about 20 percent of the profession is female. Allen, whose firm is made up equally of men and women, doesn't buy it.
"If you're interviewing people for your job, and you haven't interviewed a woman, don't hire until you've at least interviewed one woman. And if your recruiter can't get you resumes that are diverse, find another recruiter," she says.
When asked if she has ever experienced sexism, Allen doesn't want to talk about it in those terms.
Actually, Allen says, being a programmer has been a great career for her as a mom. Allen is married and has a 15-year-old son. "The women that I went to college with who are lawyers or doctors had a much harder time raising a family. They have to be there at certain times. I had an incredible amount of freedom, especially because I worked as a coder when I was a new mom and then I can work whenever I want, wherever I want," she says.
Making Magic
Allen got interested in computers when she was 12. Her mom was one of the first women to sell the Apple II, and she brought one home. Allen read the manual and taught herself to write simple programs. She says it seemed like magic to her: "I could wave my hands, and I could create this pattern in the machine, and then this thing exists that didn't exist before."
Allen graduated from Brown University in 1990 with a degree in computer science. A few years back, Allen starting going to workshops to learn a hot programming language called Ruby on Rails. Twitter was developed with it. Allen got really frustrated when she noticed that out of 200 people, only six were women. Allen and a friend started their own workshops; they were on weekends and had child care.
"We both tweeted about it. She posted to the San Francisco Women on the Web, and in less than 24 hours, we had a waiting list, and we've really proven that demand is not a problem," she says. "Every single workshop we've ever held has had a waiting list."
Since they began in 2009, the workshops — they call them RailsBridge — have drawn thousands of women, among them Lillie Chilen. Chilen was an art history and opera major in college. A lot of programming workshops felt uncomfortable.
"It can be intimidating not to have that context up front that says, 'We welcome you,' " Chilen says.
The RailsBridge workshops felt different. "It gives you a very focused opportunity to learn something and then also be a part of this network that just wants to help you do whatever you want to do next," she says.
Ester Gerston and Gloria Ruth Gordon, early programmers working on the ENIAC computer in 1946.
U.S. Army Chilen's next career move came from the workshop, where she met a woman who hired her as a programmer.
Finding A Path In Programming
Now, Allen is also working with minority groups such as Black Founders to teach more people Ruby on Rails.
"If we persist in this notion that the people who should be making software in our world are these people with low social skills who are hard to understand, we're going to miss the boat," Allen says. "We're not going to be able to solve the problems we need to solve if we don't have just lots of people who know about the rest of the world."
On the wall of Allen's office is a large photo of the ENIAC computer from 1946. It's large and dark. There are two women next to it in bright dresses moving some electrical cords. When a photo of the ENIAC appeared in Life magazine the women weren't identified.
"They thought they were like refrigerator ladies, that they were props to make the machine look more attractive," Allen says. Actually, they were early programmers Ester Gerston and Gloria Ruth Gordon.
Allen says the number of women who major in computer science has actually been going down. She hopes that making women in the field more visible to each other will help young women see that there is a path for them in what is one of the fastest growing professions in the world.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Celebrate Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month with your students!
Below are links to websites with resources for Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month. There are connections to curriculum topics that you may cover throughout the year.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Takoma Park Middle School students finish second at National Science Bowl
This neighboring school to mine recently placed second at this prestigous science competition. Go, Takoma Park!
By ,
They had to quickly spout knowledge about Punnett squares, diffractive scattering, Gila monsters and vectors. They also had to name the parts of a cell where RNA is made, then calculate the product of 84 and 96.
After days of intense competition, students from Takoma Park Middle School took second place in the 2013 U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl on Monday morning in the District. They lost the championship to students from Indiana’s Creekside Middle School.
“The other team, they were full of surprises,” said Takoma Park team captain David Wu, 13.
The team of five 7th-graders from Montgomery County said they were disappointed with the loss but are already thinking about improving their game to compete again next year in the academic tournament, which features rounds of fast-paced questions about all areas of science.
“We’ve figured out a lot that we did wrong and stuff to work on for next year,” said 13-year-old Noah Singer.
The Takoma Park students won $1,000 for their school’s science department for landing among the top eight teams. Other members of the team included Anish Senapati, 12; John Lathrop, 13; and Elliot Kienzle, 13.
It was a tough road to capture the runner-up spot. More than 5,000 middle school students from about 1,020 teams around the country competed in regional academic bowls this year. Only about 110 of those teams were eligible to compete for the middle school and high school national championships.
“I’m so proud of them,” said Takoma Park coach Rebecca Epling. “They’re collaborative, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but they all support each other in play and they’re such good friends.”
Students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology also won $1,000 after making it to the top 16 of the high school competition. The team from the Fairfax County magnet school went undefeated for four rounds of competition, but it couldn’t break into the final eight.
The team from Mira Loma High School in Sacramento won the championship title.
Locally, teams from BASIS DC and Woodrow Wilson High School, both in the District, and Nysmith School in Herndon also competed.
The Department of Energy started the National Science Bowl in 1991 to encourage students to study and pursue careers in science, math, engineering and teaching.
Takoma Park Middle School students finish second at annual National Science Bowl
(Mark Gail/ The Washington Post ) - Noah Singer (left), David Wu (center) and Anish Senapati (right), members of the Takoma Park Middle School team, discuss an answer during the National Science Bowl finals at the National Building Museum on Monday in Washington.
By ,
The team of five 7th-graders from Montgomery County said they were disappointed with the loss but are already thinking about improving their game to compete again next year in the academic tournament, which features rounds of fast-paced questions about all areas of science.
“We’ve figured out a lot that we did wrong and stuff to work on for next year,” said 13-year-old Noah Singer.
The Takoma Park students won $1,000 for their school’s science department for landing among the top eight teams. Other members of the team included Anish Senapati, 12; John Lathrop, 13; and Elliot Kienzle, 13.
It was a tough road to capture the runner-up spot. More than 5,000 middle school students from about 1,020 teams around the country competed in regional academic bowls this year. Only about 110 of those teams were eligible to compete for the middle school and high school national championships.
“I’m so proud of them,” said Takoma Park coach Rebecca Epling. “They’re collaborative, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but they all support each other in play and they’re such good friends.”
Students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology also won $1,000 after making it to the top 16 of the high school competition. The team from the Fairfax County magnet school went undefeated for four rounds of competition, but it couldn’t break into the final eight.
The team from Mira Loma High School in Sacramento won the championship title.
Locally, teams from BASIS DC and Woodrow Wilson High School, both in the District, and Nysmith School in Herndon also competed.
The Department of Energy started the National Science Bowl in 1991 to encourage students to study and pursue careers in science, math, engineering and teaching.
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