• Home
  • Resources
    • Classroom Tools
    • Games
    • Media
    • Research
    • Online Resources
  • Community
    • News
    • Organizations
  • Brain Based Learning
    • Testing
    • The Power of Feedback
    • Rewards - Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic
    • Stress and Learning
    • Meditation
    • School and Sleep
    • Brain Based Learning - Videos
  • About Us
    • What Is Joyful Learning?
    • What Is The Joyful Learning Network?
    • FAQ
    • Archives
Joyful Learning Network

Figure out what kids need to learn, then keep expectations high

10/1/2012

5 Comments

 
"The Writing Revolution"
Peg Tyre, Atlantic Magazine, October 2012

"For years, nothing seemed capable of turning around New Dorp High School’s dismal performance—not firing bad teachers, not flashy education technology, not after-school programs. So, faced with closure, the school’s principal went all-in on a very specific curriculum reform, placing an overwhelming focus on teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class. What followed was an extraordinary blossoming of student potential, across nearly every subject—one that has made New Dorp a model for educational reform."
"...
"...  And so the school’s principal, Deirdre DeAngelis, began a detailed investigation into why, ultimately, New Dorp’s students were failing.
"...
"According to the Nation’s Report Card, in 2007, the latest year for which this data is available, only 1 percent of all 12th-graders nationwide could write a sophisticated, well-­organized essay. Other research has shown that 70 to 75 percent of students in grades four through 12 write poorly. Over the past 30 years, as knowledge-based work has come to dominate the economy, American high schools have raised achievement rates in mathematics by providing more­-extensive and higher-level instruction. But high schools are still graduating large numbers of students whose writing skills better equip them to work on farms or in factories than in offices; for decades, achievement rates in writing have remained low.
"Although New Dorp teachers had observed students failing for years, they never connected that failure to specific flaws in their own teaching. ...
"... Some teachers wanted to know how this could happen. “We spent a lot of time wondering how our students had been taught,” said English teacher Stevie D’Arbanville. “How could they get passed along and end up in high school without understanding how to use the word although?”
"...
"Back on Staten Island, more New Dorp teachers were growing uncomfortably aware of their students’ profound deficiencies—and their own. “At teachers college, you read a lot of theory, like Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but don’t learn how to teach writing,” said Fran Simmons. ...
"... Teachers stopped giving fluffy assignments such as “Write a postcard to a friend describing life in the trenches of World War I” and instead demanded that students fashion an expository essay describing three major causes of the conflict."
5 Comments

Gifted and Talented education being neglected at cost to the US

9/19/2012

0 Comments

 
"Young, Gifted and Neglected"
Chester E. Finn Jr., New York Times, September 18, 2012

"It’s time to end the bias against gifted and talented education and quit assuming that every school must be all things to all students, a simplistic formula that ends up neglecting all sorts of girls and boys, many of them poor and minority, who would benefit more from specialized public schools. America should have a thousand or more high schools for able students, not 165, and elementary and middle schools that spot and prepare their future pupils."
0 Comments

September 05th, 2012

9/5/2012

0 Comments

 
"Making the Connection: Incorporate The Arts Into Every Subject"
Ann Whittemore, Lesson Planet, September 5, 2012

Why should you incorporate the arts into your curriculum? The arts are a fantastic vehicle for housing any subject, from literature to science. They provide an opportunity for learners to express or engage in what they know in a multi-sensory way. They fully engage multiple parts of the brain at one time and can also facilitate learning for a variety of intelligences. Art therapy or art mediums have been used in Special Education for years and are so versatile that they needn’t be isolated from everyday curriculum, but fully incorporated. "

Visual Arts ... 
Music and Movement ... 
Drama ... 

Read the full article to find a ton of great ideas!
0 Comments

Comic Books in the Classroom!

1/11/2012

0 Comments

 
"Using Graphic Novels and Comics in the Classroom"
Andrew Miller, Edutopia, January 11, 2012

"Here are some specific strategies to ponder as you select a graphic novel or comic to read, or as you consider how students might create their own. Thinking about them will help you focus your purpose in your instruction. All of them are useful, as long as the purpose is clear to the teacher and the learner.
...
"1) A Tool to Differentiate Instruction
"Graphic novels and comics can be a great way to differentiate instruction for learners in terms of reading and also in terms of assessment. 
...
"3) Assess Student Learning
"PBL calls for the creation of authentic products that are useful and credible to the group. You can have students create comics or graphic novels, or components of them, as a useful formative assessment tool to check for understanding of important content. If used as a summative assessment, the comic could be made to combat bullying, such as the suggestion Suzie Boss made in an earlier post. Make the graphic novel or comic a product that students create to meet a need. Don't just make it a regurgitation of knowledge. Instead, give it an authentic purpose.
...
"There are many other purposes for graphic novels in the classroom, from looking at different cultures and backgrounds to utilizing technology in authentic ways. Just make sure you select the graphic novel or comic with a clear purpose in mind. Perhaps you have multiple purposes, as there are many instructionally sound purposes out there."

"I will leave you with some favorite graphic novels and comics that I've used in my classroom! Trust me, I have read plenty more than this list!

  • "Persepolis, a memoir of a girl growing up during the Islamic revolution in Iran, was recently made into a motion picture.
  • "Maus, a top favorite for many, explores themes of the Holocaust through a memoir characterized by mice and cats.
  • "American Born Chinese is the tale of three characters: Jin Wang, the only Chinese-American in the neighborhood; Chin-Kee, the ultimate Chinese stereotype; and the Monkey King, ancient fable character."

0 Comments

    Joyful News

    News from around the web ... ordered in date of original publication, so you can see what's most recent on this page, or select by a specific category below. Let us know if a great news story comes across your screen!

    Picture

    Archives

    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    July 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    February 2009

    Categories

    All
    Arts
    Assessment
    Books
    Capitalism
    Character
    Collaboration
    Communication
    Creativity
    Curiosity
    Degrees
    Differentiation
    Drama
    England
    Expectations
    Failure
    Farm
    Financial Satisfaction
    Flexibility
    Focus
    Friendship
    Games
    Gifted
    Girls
    G.N.H.
    Grades
    Grants
    Graphic Novels
    Gratitude
    Growth
    Happiness
    Happiness Index
    Health
    Independence
    Innovation
    Job Security
    Joy
    Language Arts
    Learning
    Math
    Middle School
    Montessori
    Motivation
    Music
    Olympics
    Online
    Optimism
    Parenting
    Perserverance
    Play
    Post Secondary
    Post-secondary
    Reading
    Recess
    Research
    Safety
    School Climate
    Schools
    Science
    Self-control
    Social Safety Net
    Social Studies
    Stem
    Studying
    Success
    Summer
    Teaching
    Teamwork
    Technology
    Testing
    U.N.
    Waldorf
    Well Being
    Well-being
    Work
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.