Webinar on common core standards

New times require new approaches to education and greater attention to building the teaching profession. On July 17, 2010, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released new “model core teaching standards” for public comment. The model core teaching standards are an initial effort to articulate—through the lens of the teacher—what effective teaching and learning would look like to ensure all learners are college and career ready. Unlike the original teacher standards, which focus on the assessment and support of beginning teachers, the new core teaching standards are standards of professional practice for all teachers. 

These model core teaching standards represent a new vision of teaching with increased focus on twenty-first-century knowledge and skills, personalized learning, a collaborative professional culture, improved assessment literacy, and new roles for teachers and administrators. In order to deliver a first-rate education to every child, policy leaders and educators must engage in the process of first defining effective teaching practice and then shaping policies based on a consistent vision of quality teaching.   

To learn more about the model core teaching standards and their potential for improving teacher effectiveness, join the Alliance and CCSSO for an interactive webinar on Wednesday, October 6 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm (EST). The webinar will also include a question and answer period to address questions submitted by viewers across the nation.   The draft core teaching standards are open for public comment until October 15, 2010. To download the new standards and submit comments, go to [ http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/Interstate_Teacher_Assessment_Consortium_(InTASC).html ]http://www.ccsso.org/intasc.

To register for the webinar and/or submit questions, click here.

Reading and writiing work

BROCKTON, Mass. — A decade ago, Brockton High School was a case study in failure. Teachers and administrators often voiced the unofficial school motto in hallway chitchat: students have a right to fail if they want. And many of them did — only a quarter of the students passed statewide exams. One in three dropped out.

Then Susan Szachowicz and a handful of fellow teachers decided to take action. They persuaded administrators to let them organize a schoolwide campaign that involved reading and writing lessons into every class in all subjects, including gym.

Their efforts paid off quickly. In 2001 testing, more students passed the state tests after failing the year before than at any other school in Massachusetts. The gains continued. This year and last, Brockton outperformed 90 percent of Massachusetts high schools. And its turnaround is getting new attention in a report, “How High Schools Become Exemplary,” published last month by Ronald F. Ferguson, an economist at Harvard who researches the minority achievement gap. (Sam Dillon at NYT)

Follow the above linked text to read more. To download and read the report, How High Schools Become Exemplary, click here.

UND President Robert Kelley's reading tomorrow is postponed. Check back at this blog soon for an update.

Important event this week

         UND President Robert Kelley will read for Literary Lunches   
                          first lunch only September 30, 2010. 

Getting organized

LiveBinders is a terrific online tool for compiling and organizing information from the Internet and your desktop. Instead of bookmarking sites, you use LiveBinders for putting material in an online binder that you can share through a variety of platforms. You also have the option to make your binder(s) private, so that it cannot be shared.

Below is an example of  LiveBinder...about using LiveBinders. Click on the binder to explore it.

LiveBinders Tips and Tricks

Barrington Bunny's story

"A good story keeps working on you," Pastor Roger Dykstra told yesterday's literary lunch-goers, and the story he read, Barrington Bunny, certainly did just that.

Dykstra, the lead pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church in Grand Forks, read this seemingly simple Martin Bell story--one he first heard as high school student---about a bunny in search of companionship on Christmas Eve. Barrington, the lone bunny in the forest, searches for a Christmas party. He's unable to find a party he can join and is about to lose hope when a wolf explains to him that all the animals in the forest are his family, something that prompts him to find unique gifts for the other animals.

Spoiler Alert: After Dykstra finished the story, he joked that it took him "eight times to read before he could read it without crying." Certainly there were no tears from anyone you'd know at Literary Lunches yesterday.  ;)

Dykstra said something about Barrington Bunny that will keep "working on"  those who heard him: "I believe that sometimes you being you is exactly what the world needs."

Lunch and re-thinking what we think we know

At yesterday's session of Literary Lunches, Tori Johnson, director of special education for Grand Forks Public Schools, read from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, a book whose narrator is Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy with autism. She prefaced her reading by not only talking how some people with autism have difficulty reading facial expressions, but also by saying, "When you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism."

In Johnson's selection, Boone discovers the corpse of a dog on a pitch fork. The police arrive. It's then we get a glimpse into Boone, who notices even the slightest detail about the police.

Johnson also read an excerpt from The Last Lecture by the late Randy Rausch. The excerpt candidly focuses on how whining doesn't help people. And Johnson concluded with work by the poet Maya Angelou.

The Big Read is on the horizon

"We are so pleased to host a Big Read in Grand Forks,” said Wendy Wendt, director of the Grand Forks Public Library. “Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a fictionalized memoir of an infantry soldier as his platoon trudges through the jungles of Vietnam. We chose this book because of its potential appeal to those who may not have a habit of reading books for recreation. We also thought the strong armed forces presence in the greater Grand Forks area would afford many community members a story in which they could identify – veterans, active duty military, and their family members. In addition, people who have never been personally affected by military service gain some small insight into the sacrifices made for this country by reading this book.”

Grand Forks Big Read community partners include the Grand Force Air Force Base, the Grand Forks Public School District, Northland Community College, and UND, which will be bringing the author, Tim O’Brien to the community on Oct. 14 and 15. Other community participants include the arts community, the Myra Museum, Turtle River State Park and many others. (text from University Letter, University of North Dakota Faculty/Staff Newsletter online)