MSM 210: What’s Wrong With The Teenage Mind . . . ?

 AMLE Feature:

No specific AMLE Feature this week. Look for more to come.

Jokes You Can Use:

Boss: I’ve noticed that you go out and get your haircut during work hours.

Employee: It grows during work hours.

Boss: It also grows during non-work hours.

Employee: I didn’t get it all cut.

 

What did the leftovers say when put into the freezer?

Foiled again.

 

What’s another name for a nursery?

Bawlroom.

 

Eileen Award:

 

• Annie Murphy Paul
• Alise Herrara
• Joe Webb
• Sara Davenport Sisk

Advisory:

World of Coins

http://twentytwowords.com/2012/06/09/a-world-map-made-of-the-worlds-coins/

 

Food Tweeting Around the World

http://foodmood.in/

Challenges

http://twentytwowords.com/2012/06/11/10-bets-youll-always-win-unless-the-other-bettor-has-seen-this-video-too/

 

Fun with Visual Charades and Narrated Slideshows Based on Fairy Tales

In their recently published article, “Five-Picture Charades: A Flexible Model for Technology Training in Digital Media Tools and Teaching Strategies,” in the journal Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, Curby Alexander and Tom Hammond present a persuasive case for using “visual charades” as a learning activity with students involving media and creativity.

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2012/06/06/fun-with-visual-charades-and-narrated-slideshows-based-on-fairy-tales-edtech4u/

Middle School Science Minute  

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

 

In the Spring Edition of “Green Teacher,” Emily Harris wrote an article entitled, “Fostering Students’ Water Wisdom.”  The purpose of the article was to bring water awareness into the classroom and contribute to a better global future.

 

She says that teachers play a vital role in helping foster an early appreciation of this most precious resource.  For this reason, WaterCan developed curriculum resources in both English and French which can be freely downloaded from the “Water Wisdom Portal” at:

http://www.watercan.com/students

 

She then goes on to share one of her favorite lesson plans for 7th – 8th grade students, entitled “Water Around the World.”  This class project introduces students to water usage, and to data gathering and analysis.

 

Dave’s Water Cycle Song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw275056JtA

 

Hey Dave, what do you think about this?  

“Voyager 1 Spaceship to Break Out of Solar System, Into Outer Spacehttp://abcn.ws/N0eYA8”  

Thompson: The Humiliation Of High-Stakes Standardized Testing

Virtually all of my students volunteered accounts of the testing indignities that have been dumped on them, but I am particularly haunted by Jeremy, as I will call him.  This brilliant Native American gave into depression when stakes were attached to weekly benchmark assessments, meaning that half of class time was lost to testing.  In my non-tested class, Jeremy would periodically wave a standardized math or English test that he was supposed to have turned in for a grade.  “This is what they think of us,” he would moan. Like nearly 40%  of that semester’s sophomores, Jeremy dropped out was driven out by the test prep which drove out teaching and learning.

http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2012/06/thompson-pearson-anti-testing-rally-illuminates-the-essence-of-bubble-in-testing.html 

Future Shock

I’ll have more to say on the iPad later but one can’t help being struck by the volume and vehemence of apparently technologically sophisticated people inveighing against the iPad.

http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html

 

Computers Grade Essays Fast … But Not Always Well

by MOLLY BLOOM

 

Imagine a school where every child gets instant, personalized writing help for a fraction of the cost of hiring a human teacher — and where a computer, not a person, grades a student’s essays.

Perelman says any student who can read can be taught to score very highly on a machine-graded test.

Shermis ran the Gettysburg Address through one of the earlier-generation computer grading programs, one usually used to evaluate the writing abilities of college freshmen.

Suffice it to say, Abe did not ace the test.

The computer graders he uses give students instant feedback on every draft. Pence says there’s no way he and his red teacher’s pen could do that. And quicker responses, he says, lead to more writing.

“The quantity drives the quality up,” Pence says. “It’s kind of the old bicycle thing — the best way to learn how to ride a bicycle is to ride a bicycle. And the best way to get better at writing is to write and receive consistent, timely feedback.”

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/07/154452475/computers-grade-essays-fast-but-not-always-well?ft=1&f=1019

 

What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind?

 

“What was he thinking?” It’s the familiar cry of bewildered parents trying to understand why their teenagers act the way they do.

How does the boy who can thoughtfully explain the reasons never to drink and drive end up in a drunken crash? Why does the girl who knows all about birth control find herself pregnant by a boy she doesn’t even like? What happened to the gifted, imaginative child who excelled through high school but then dropped out of college, drifted from job to job and now lives in his parents’ basement?

What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness.

Becoming an adult means leaving the world of your parents and starting to make your way toward the future that you will share with your peers. Puberty not only turns on the motivational and emotional system with new force, it also turns it away from the family and toward the world of equals.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577181351486558984.html

 

Tools:

Quipper

Quipper produces entertaining and educational quiz apps. We also allows users to create their own apps! Also available on iOS and Android.

http://www.quipper.com/ 

 

Go Class

GoClass is a teaching application for tablet devices that redefines the boundaries of computing in the classroom. Connect with your students like never before, customize and fine-tune your lesson plans on the fly, engage students in new ways and continuously evaluate their understanding while you are in class.

By enriching existing methodologies – rather than replacing them – GoClass empowers you to build on your teaching experience while engaging students in a 21st century learning environment.

*NOTE: They have rights to all materials. 

http://www.goclass.com/guestapp/index.aspx 

Resources:

50 Summer Learning Activities for Kids

Common Sense Media has produced a 16 page guide to summer learning activities.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/06/50-summer-learning-activities-for-kids.html

 

 Summer Reading List

Summer, with its steady supply of barbecues, picnics, parties, and other heavy doses of sociality, makes the need for a well-timed antidote of solitude more urgent than any other season, and what better solitary escape than a good book? It’s time for the annual Brain Pickings summer reading list for cognitive sunshine. Gathered here, in no particular order, are 10 recent and forthcoming books to infuse your season’s well-measured you-moments with a wealth of cross-disciplinary stimulation.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/06/11/summer-reading-list-2012/

Web Spotlight:

TIMMS/PISA vs. Entrepreneural Spirit:  

http://zhaolearning.com/2012/06/06/test-scores-vs-entrepreneurship-pisa-timss-and-confidence/

 

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

Ohio Middle Level Association:

 

• The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference.

 

• OMLA Registration Form
• OMLA Presentation Proposal Form

 

AMLE Affiliate Conferences:

 

• The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference is coming up March 2012 in Warren Woods, MI.  
  • MAMSE Exhibitor Form
  • MAMSE Registration Form

 

• MAMSE Presentation Form
• MAMSE Conference Program Book (2011)
• The North Carolina Middle School Association’s Annual Conference March 13-15, 2012
  • Conference Brochure  
  • Presenter’s Application
  • Who They Are . . .
  • This year’s sessions . . .

 

Classroom 2.0’s Live Calendar.

• Classroom 2.0’s Ning Blog: Archived content is available.