MSM 236: A Quandary, 200 calories and Cross Cutting Concepts of Baby Food

Presented in collaboration with the Association for Middle Level Education.

 

Jokes You Can Use:

What scares the daylights into you?
In which month do kids talk the least?
What’s a perfect gift for someone who has everything?
Remember, teenagers rarely make the same mistake twice.

Eileen Award:

 

• Facebook: Brigitte Darling
• Google+: Jim Peterson

Advisory:

Quandary

Quandary is a free, online game that engages your students in ethical decision-making and develops skills that will help them recognize ethical issues and deal with challenging situations in their own lives.
There are three episodes (scenarios) in Quandary. Each takes about 10-30 minutes to complete, depending on the speed of the player.
Quandary’s registration system allows players to save their progress after each episode and return by logging-in at a different time. It’s not necessary to register to play the game, but note that progress will not be saved.
http://www.quandarygame.org/
Check out the Teacher’s page: http://www.quandarygame.org/teachers

One Sentence Stories

Have students create one sentence stories that describe them in the future. These can be video’d.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ndqdD6EXat4#!
Dan Pink’s Version:
http://www.danpink.com/2011/01/whats-your-sentence-the-video

*Infographic Removed 9-12-2013

200 Calories

What does 200 calories look like?
http://imgur.com/a/w9nHF

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

Cross Cutting Concepts

An important component of the Next Generation Science Standards are the Cross Cutting Concepts.  They are the important themes that pervade science, mathematics, and technology.  The seven crosscutting concepts are:
*  Patterns
*  Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation
*  Scale, Proportion and Quantity
*  Systems and System Models
*  Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation
*  Structure and Function
*  Stability and Change

Keep up the great work,
Dave

By the way, I added a Twitterverse to my bi-monthly Michigan Science Matters Network eBlast.  Check it out at:
http://www.msta-mich.org/educator-support/84-science-matters/256-science-matters-e-blast-january-24-2013

From the Twitterverse:

Good Afternoon! I’m live on TwitCasting from my MacBook! ( #fhuedu642 EDU 642 Advanced Tech http://moi.st/92da74  )#mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Resources:

Tapestry

Great one way books for iPad, iPhones, etc. Easy to use.

http://tapestry.is/

Historical Dictionary

A glossary of historical terms
http://www.historytoday.com/dictionary

Public Domain Images

These are images that are free to use for presentations.
http://pixabay.com/

Web Spotlight:

 

In Iowa, our Department of Education brags about elementary schools that cut recess

In the 2004-2005 school year, 18 4th graders took the state reading test at Charter Oak-Ute Elementary. Only 14 were deemed proficient, for an AYP percentage of 78%. That apparently sparked a 7-year quest to raise test scores.
Today the Iowa Department of Education (DE) touted Charter Oak-Ute Elementary as one of the 5 schools (out of 1,409 in the state) that’s supposedly proving that poverty does not equal destiny. In fact, DE boldly said on its home page:

It may be well known that high-poverty schools will have lower proficiency rates than their more affluent counterparts. Sure, it’s well known. But it is wrong.*  [yes, that was our Department of Education dismissing decades of peer-reviewed research on student learning outcomes in high-poverty schools]

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2013/02/in-iowa-our-department-of-education-brags-about-elementary-schools-that-cut-recess.html

A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments of Teaching

by Maria Popova
Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/02/a-liberal-decalogue-bertrand-russell/

Several years ago, we decided to design a more comprehensive way of evaluating our students’ success in our middle school. We acknowledged that grades are just one measure of how students can experience success in school.
The SAP has changed our school. Our students are aware of where they are in their education experience, and have ownership in the process. Almost every student knows his or her grades, attendance, Acuity and STAR score as well as overall points. Students, parents, teachers, and administrators are crystal clear about whether a student is on track to pass or fail.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/02/guest-post-student-accountability.html

The Independent Project

The Independent Project is an alternative student driven school-within-a-school that was started at Monument Mountain Regional High School by a student.
Eight students were accepted into the pilot program of the school, which ran for one semester and is now complete. The school, dubbed The Independent Project, is now in the stage of redesign and replication.
http://www.theindependentproject.org/the-white-paper/

Mycestro™

A 3D mouse that fits on the index finger and allows you to control your computer with hand gestures and mouse functions.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mycestro/mycestrotm-the-next-generation-3d-mouse?ref=live

Markup

Our mission is to achieve a paperless classroom. With Markup, teachers can grade assignments on the iPad.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1834203895/markup-paperless-grading-for-teachers?ref=category

News:

 

Perfectly preparing a generation for its own history

“The fallacy of competitive education is its obsession with remembered right answers. The fallacy of right answers is that today success depends less on right answers and more on finding good answers and using them to accomplish meaningful goals. What does the game of school do to children who are more inclined to find and invent good answers than memorize correct answers?

….

As long as we race [to the top], scoring points by teaching the same answers for the same tests to every child, then we’re perfectly preparing a generation for its own history.”

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2013/02/perfectly-preparing-a-generation-for-its-own-history.html