Podcast #24 Free, Tech and Class Size

This Week in the News:

Class-Size Reduction of Limited Value on Achievement Gap, Study Finds

Reviewing data from Project STAR—a longitudinal research study on class-size reduction in Tennessee and the most famous experiment on the topic—Spyros Konstantopoulos, an assistant professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., said that it’s a “tempting” idea to think that having fewer students assigned to a teacher will reduce the achievement gaps between students.

Researchers Want NAEP to Measure More Than Academics

Reassessing the Achievement Gap: Fully Measuring What Students Should be Taught in School” argues that NAEP results offer a “distorted” picture of student achievement because of their exclusive focus on academic skills and shift attention away from nontested areas that often fall under the purview of schools.

“When you focus only on basic academic skills, you create incentives to redirect all the attention and resources away from broader goals to narrow academic skills,” said Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Washington-based think tank Economic Policy Institute. “What gets measured gets done. The idea is that we’re not going to restore balance to our schools unless we measure all those things that we expect schools to do.”

Our Take on the Future of Education:

Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants (Prensky)
Ohio Middle School Association Presentations that tie in with this topic:
Misty O’Connor – Point, Click, Learn, CEO www.mistyoconnor.com (877) 592-2617 (Mention you heard/saw it on Middle School Matters!)
Skype: www.skype.com
Second Life: http://secondlife.com
You Tube: www.youtube.com
Jing Project: www.jingproject.com
Teacher Tube: http://www.teachertube.com
Crappy Graphs: http://crappygraphs.com
http://mistysdigitaldigressions.blogspot.com

The Tech-10! by Paul Gigliotti (gigliotti11@hotmail.com) and Nancy Rundell (marundell@yahoo.com)
1. The Force Multiplier
2. Customized Lessons for Students
3. Facilitate Active Learning
4. Greater Accessibility
5. Learning Communities
6. Motivate Students
7. Content Literacy
8. At-Risk Intervention
9. Special Education
10. Anchored Assessment