< Greenholme Teachers' Forum>: 2008

Friday 28 November 2008

Science Fair and Math

http://www.virtualsciencefair.com/
http://www.power4bones.com/
Request your FREE Tickets and / or register for the PD Session here or cut and paste this address into your browser:
www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/school/events/teacherevents
• Destination Space (4-8)
• Journey to the Red Planet (4-8)
• Solar System Revealed (4-8)
• Space Mission: Voyage to Mars (5-12)
• Cosmic Connections (9)
• Mars Explored (9-12)
• You and the Universe (9-12)
http://www.curriculum.org/index2.shtml
http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/core.cfm

Thursday 20 November 2008

Forms of writing

http://www.tweakit.co.uk/attachments/1060.pdf

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Literacy website

http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/teacher_resources/literacy_pages/comprehension_strategies.htm

Thursday 18 September 2008

A Maths Dictionary for Kids www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com
3 and Up
• contains useful definitions of math terms that children
will encounter in school
• gives children opportunity to practice with the
Definitions
Cool Math 4 Kids www.coolmath4kids.com

1 – 6 • teaches many concepts such as addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division and allows children to practice
• children may need help reading the lessons
Parent – Ed: The Parents Place at
CoolMath www.coolmath.com/parents/
• this site provides helpful hints for parents on how to
help their child
• also provides links to other math sites and games
Rainforest Math www.rainforestmaths.com
K – 6 • provides numerous interactive math activities for all
grades from kindergarten to grade 6 in many math strands
National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics
http://illuminations.nctm.org/
K – 12
• explore a library of 91 online activities
• children may require adult help to read instructions
Mathfrog
http://cemc.uwaterloo.ca/mathfrog/index.shtml
4 – 6
• a website of free mathematics, free resources, and online
games
• contains a teacher and parent section which provides
instructions to the games as well as a description of
concepts being used
• some online games also provide a follow up page which
can be printed on and worked on after children play the
game
National Library of Virtual
Manipulatives
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/index.html
K - 12
• interactive tutorials of many math concepts similar to
Ontario’s 5 strands of math
• younger children will need adult help to read
instructions
A Plus Math www.aplusmath.com
1 - 6
• children can practice math facts in areas such as
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, rounding
and analog clocks
LearningBox.com www.learningbox.com/base10/BaseTen.html
1 – 3 • use this site to reinforce the use of base ten blocks
Northwest Vision and Learning
Centre
www.visionandlearningcenter.com/tangram/tangram.php
1 - 6
• allows children an opportunity to practice solving
tangram puzzles which are excellent ways to improve
problem solving, shape concepts, and visual memory
Harcourt School www.harcourtschool.com/activity/mmath/mmath_lion.html
1 -2
• an online game which gives children a chance to practice
using a number line
Math Drills www.math-drills.com/
1 – 5
• free math worksheets
Nelson Math www.mathk8.nelson.com/
3 - 5
• support for at-home activities, fun and useful web links,
and tips for using the Internet safely
• children can practice what is learned at school using
online quizzes and reviews
TLS Books.com www.tlsbooks.com/mathworksheets.htm
K – 5
• find printable worksheets on various math topics
• you will need Adobe Reader 6 or greater to access the
worksheets
Oswego City School District www.oswego.org/staff/cchamber/techno/games.htm
3 - 5 • this site contains various interactive math activities

Thursday 11 September 2008

A Portal of Media Litaracy

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s&feature=user

Thursday 4 September 2008

More primary resources

Tuesday 2 September 2008

Literacy Centres (Primary)

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Literacy.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Learning%20Together.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Class%20Books.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Writing.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Literature%20Extensions%20and%20Responses.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Literacy%20Props.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/AuthorLabels.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/BookLabels.htm

http://www.ourschoolfamily.com/Nursery%20Rhymes.htm

Thursday 28 August 2008

Language Arts - Reading, writing and much More

http://reading.ecb.org/

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/Reading%20Workshop.htm

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/writing%20workshop1.htm

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/library.htm

Welcome to teaching and Learning

I'm excited to share our "hot off the press" 2008/2009 Welcome to Teaching & Learning Booklet which provides (hopefully!) a good overview of our programs for your first 5 years of teaching. Our goal is build instructional excellence in our classrooms by supporting you along your personal continuum of professional learning and growth, as you live "the heart and the art" of teaching and learning with your students!
Jim Strachan

Wednesday 27 August 2008

Some more Useful Websites

Some Useful Websites
MATH
http://lrt.ednet.ns.ca/PD/BLM/table_of_contents.htm

- This site provides quick templates such as hundreds charts, multiplication tables, fraction circles, money, and all the other manipulatives

SOCIAL STUDIES
http://www.canadainfolink.ca/teach.htm

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/islam/history/history.htm

ART (Information/activities for visual arts and music)
http://www.brigantine.atlnet.org/GigapaletteGALLERY/websites/ARTiculationFinal/MainPages/Ele
mentsMain.htm
http://www.musictechteacher.com/musicquizzes.htm

http://numbera.com/musictheory/theory/notation.aspx

SCIENCE
http://www.torontozoo.com/Animals/details.asp?AnimalId=401

- This site is a link to the Toronto Zoo. It also has quick facts for the animals that can be found in the various pavillions (can be tied in with a research assignment)

Curriculum Expectations

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/8314/currgrid.htm

This site offers the curriculum expectations for each grade/each subject on one page.

Monday 25 August 2008

Literacy Mini posters

Make a Connection to Facts
· This reminds me of …
· This part is like …
· This is similar to …
· I guess this idea of ____ is
· The differences are …
· I’ve heard this before in …
· I’ve learned something like ____ before in …
· like ____ in real life.
· I’ve seen something on TV/in a movie that showed this ____ .
To Make Inferences, Skilled Readers
· Understand the intonation of characters’ words
· Identify characters’ beliefs, personalities, and motivation
· Understand characters’ relationships to one another
· Provide details about the setting
· Provide explanations or offer details for events or ideas in the text
· Recognize the author’s biases
· Relate what is happening to their own knowledge of the world
· Offer conclusions from facts presented in the text
· Figure out the meaning of unknown words from context clues
· Figure out the grammatical function of an unknown word
Ask a Question
· Why did …?
· Why is this _____ here?
· How is this ____ like this ____?
· Why …?
· Who is …?
· What does ____ mean?
· Do you think that …?
· I don’t get this part here where it says …
How To Make An Inference
Question
It Says
I Say
And So
1. Read the question.
2. Find information from the text that will help you answer the question.
3. Think about what you know about that information.
4. Combine what the text says with what you know to come up with the answer.

Teachers' resources websites

Fabulous teacher websites...feel free to add your personal favourites:

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/
http://www.atozteacherstuff.com

Monday 9 June 2008

The Girl Who Silenced the World at the UN

Severn Suzuki's speech at UN Earth Smmit

12 Year Old Girl Silences the UN.

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=433

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Sb6RmRMbBY

Friday 6 June 2008

Enhance Learning with Technology -Differentiated Instructions

Differentiated Instyructions:
Enhancing Learning with Technology (Differentiated Instruction) - I think that it is very useful site too. I came across it and it looks pretty good. Let me know what you think! http://members.shaw.ca/priscillatheroux/differentiating.html

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Monday 12 May 2008

More ESL Resources

www.eslgames.com
BBC Schools
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/index.shtml
CanTeach
http://www.canteach.ca/links/linkengsec.html
California State University ESL Lesson Plans and Resources
http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/eslplans.html
David’s ESL Café’s Idea Cookbook
http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi
EnglishRaven.com
http://www.englishraven.com/Main.html
ESLGold
http://www.eslgold.com/
ESL KidStuff
http://www.eslkidstuff.com/
ESLPDF
http://www.eslpdf.com/
ESLPoint.com
http://www.eslpoint.com/
ESL Teacher Talk
http://www.eslteachertalk.com/
ESL Teacher Tips E-zine
http://www.english-teaching-info.com/esl-teacher-tips-newsletter.html
ESL Teaching Tips
http://www.eslteachingtips.com/
Interesting Things for ESL Students
http://www.manythings.org/
Lanternfish
http://bogglesworldesl.com/
LearnEnglishFeelGood.com
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/
onestopEnglish
http://www.onestopenglish.com/index.asp?catid=59495
Owl Writing Lab ESL Resources for Teachers
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/eslteacher.html
SimplyESL
http://www.simplyesl.com/
ESL Language Schools
http://esllanguageschools.suite101.com/
TEFL.NET - because you teach English
http://www.tefl.net/
The Literacy Web
http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/

ESL - Resource Websites

ESL Websites:
• DEN (Digital Education Network) – Cdn. Website with reading comprehension, accompanying exercises in math and writing
http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/menu.htm
• Self-Study Quizzes for ESL Students – over 1000 grammar and vocabulary quizzes and trivia questions on a variety of topics
http://a4esl.org/
• Interesting Things for ESL Students – offers many things from crosswords, scrambled sentences, a speech synthesizer, computer assisted writing www.manythings.org
• ESL Blue – a Cdn. website (Quebec) with materials at all levels
http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/trouindx.htm
• Comprehensive site by Eva Leaston
http://eleaston.com/
http://www.settlement.org/
• a very comprehensive site for new immigrants, the Newcomers Guide to Ontario is part of this site
• Magda’s ESL Resources – a comprehensive site where you will find the above links as well as others (online picture dictionaries are really good)
http://eslresources.ca/
• TESL-J – the internet TESL Journal for Teachers of ESL, great professional development link http://iteslj.org/
• TESL-L – an electronic mailing list for ESL teachers, 12000 teachers belong to it http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/~tesl-l/
• TESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links – links to sites for teachers and students http://iteslj.org/links/
• ESL-Loop Site – can find more ESL sites
http://www.linguistic-funland.com/esloop/esloop.html
• The Multi-literacy Project -- A research collaboration of students, educators and researchers http://www.multiliteracies.ca/

Monday 5 May 2008

Asian Heritage Resources

Thursday 24 April 2008

A poem against Guns and Voilence & Real Toronto Youtube Website

How many memorials
I have to erect in the city?
How many times I have to stand
In the circle to pray
For the fallen heroes?
How many times I have to stop
Having my dinner during the evening news?
My God where are you?
Now I need you the most.
My heart is on fire and
The feathers of my guardian angel are burning.
Look around us.
People with no hope
Walking like zombie
Don't erect a memorial or put flowers
Where I was gunned down. Throw all the guns and drugs in a pyre
And give me hope for tomorrow.
by Ifti Nasim
Chicago
(Reggie Nunnery,a young man, was gunned down in gang cross fire. Reggie was an innocent by stander)
Please visit this You Tube website for Real Toronto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjhJgR4ZR8A
Please visit this you tube website for "VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS"
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=JZVoVDgc-Og&feature=related

Wednesday 23 April 2008

The Importance of Reflection

Below you will find some ideas, resources and strategies that encourage and support students as they reflect on their ability to make meaning and learn.
• Within the Beginning Teachers resource booklet, Building Effective Classrooms: http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/asit/standards/btstart/BTClassM.pdf , Jim provides examples of three dimensions of reflection questions: content focused reflection, collaborative focused reflection, and personal focused reflection. We need to provide students with opportunities to reflect in all dimensions regularly.
• In the article, "Reading, Responding, Reflecting" by Lifford. et al, English Journal, March, 2000 (I have attached the articleJ) A strategy called pictograms is reviewed. Similar to mind mapping, pictograms is one non-linguistic way for students to express their thoughts and feelings. In pictograms, students visualize the reading process through drawings. Students think about the steps they go through from the time they begin reading to making sense of what they have read. This is captured in a series of pictures which give teachers insight and students understanding in a concrete manner.
• Another non-linguistic way for students to reflect upon their learning is through creating and interpreting graphs. When students see and discuss data for themselves they are more likely to internalize the information. The process encourages ownership of their learning goals. This website provides a simple graph making tool for students to create and interpret data:
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/
• Attentive listening during a reflecting conversation is another way for teachers to have a "window" into their students' thinking. In Coaching 101, page 2, Jim provides a simple framework for a conference/conversation teachers can have with their students: http://schools.tdsb.on.ca/asit/standards/btstart/Coaching101.pdf Scaling questions encourage the learner to focus on the positive and then to identify one strategy or step to doing a little "better" in the future.

Reading And Writing Together

Reading, Responding and Reflecting
JEAN LIFFORD, BARBARA BYRON, JEAN ECKBLAD, AND CAROL ZIEMIAN
Background
Why do so many of our students, even so-called good students, year after year “construct”the same misreadings of many of the literary texts used in class? Why, forinstance, do students insist that Eveline is simply behaving as a dutiful daughter when she refuses to run away with Frank, thus ignoring Joyce’s description of her as “passive, like a helpless animal”? Why do students agree with narrators like Jack in Canin’sstory, “Lies,” that the father tells the truth and the mother lies, or with eas . . . Rather they create something in the process of reading and what they create depends not only on the text itself but also on who the readers are and what they bring with them to the reading” (Probst 62). As Constance Weaver proposes in Reading Process and Practice, “The reader brings meaning to the text in order to get meaning from it” (38). Like process writing, this approach did encourage our students to see themselves as meaning makers when it came to reading; no longer did they view literature class simply as a game of “Guess what’s in the teacher’s brain.” By responding in journals about their reactions to what they read, students did consider the emotions, insights, and connections to their own life experiences that the text elicited. And they did appreciate this focus on their ideas. In surveys, they made such statements as, “Now my ideas are valued,” or “Now I do much more thinking when I read.” However, even with this emphasis on the reading strategies that students could employ to access and understand increasingly difficult texts, we did not see these strategies becoming an inherent part of their reading, thinking, comprehending process. As Probst also noticed, while students did become more actively engaged in the reading process when they wrote in response journals about their transactions with works, too often their responses were loose and strayed from the text. It soon became evident to us that telling students to speculate, hypothesize, question, reflect, and wonder in their journals did not always result in responses where they actually thought about ambiguities, tried to fill in gaps, or pondered contradictory or alternative interpretations. Instead, students seemed to want to “naturalize” a text by judging characters and events according to their own values (McCormick, Fowler, and Waller 120). According to Martha Rozett in Talking Back to Shakespeare, student readers often reduce texts to fit their experiences. They “apply interpretive conventions that frequently put a good deal of emphasis on characters as responsible members of society, accountable for the consequences of their behavior” (16). In addition, as Michael Smith explores in Understanding Unreliable Narrators, students find it too easy to ignore point of view, assuming that narrators are reliable and that, most likely, authors are speaking through the central character (144). Moreover, in responding to poetry or to especially dense or ambiguous passages in prose pieces, students miss specific clues to meaning by ignoring pronoun referents; attending superficially to word patterns; and skipping over confusing passages, terms, and vocabulary. Study In English classes grades six through twelve, then, we have experimented with more direct instruction of the explicit strategies that students should use when reading. Perhaps equally important, we have included more frequent, ongoing, diverse opportunities for students to debrief and reflect on their effectiveness in integrating these strategies into their reading processes. As Laura Soldner states in “Self- Assessment and the Reflective Reader,” activities that encourage students to write about their thinking and reading strategies help them to “examine whether what they are doing is working in order to build on their successes or to reflect upon the difficulties they are experiencing so they may determine for themselves what steps to take to resolve their struggles with reading and learning” (2). The Rhode Island English Language Arts Frameworks devotes an entire standard to metacognition and self-evaluation: Students will be aware of how they gain meaning from text, how they create text to communicate meaning, and how their previous knowledge and experiences are brought to bear on text. This consciousness is crucial if students are to adjust or adapt their thinking strategies to changing circumstances.
For our overall program of comprehension instruction we found the profiles of what thoughtful readers do developed by David Pearson, Laura Roehler, Janice Dole, and Gerald Duffy most helpful. Thoughtful readers (1) use prior knowledge, (2) “monitor their comprehension” as they read, (3) use fix-up strategies to repair comprehension that “has gone awry,” (4) “are able to determine what’s important” in reading, (5) “synthesize information when they read,” (6) “draw inferences during and after reading,” and (7) ask questions. Pearson et al. also offer some instructional “rules of thumb.” These include (1) teaching a small number of key strategies well and applying them frequently, (2) recognizing that reading is not a set of isolated skills picked up sequentially; rather it is a “process of emerging expertise,” and (3) treating reading strategies as adaptable. In addition, Pearson and his colleagues emphasize the importance of metacognition by concluding that good reading instruction helps students to “develop understanding about reading,” in terms of both large concepts and “how, when, and where” to use specific strategies (153–169). In addition to these broad comprehension factors that help students construct meaning, John Chapman suggests that teachers focus on explicit factors of language structure that students need to consider if they are to develop a meaningful big picture. In other words, two processes are at work almost simultaneously. As I. A. Richards posits, readers must both construe meaning (complete a careful literal reading) and at the same time construct meaning (question, wonder, and interpret) (Berthoff 18). Activities for Practicing Strategies As part of our current literature instruction, in addition to the typical reader-response, open-ended prompts we had been using, we now include a number of activities that help our students practice specific strategies and reflect on and assess how effectively they use these strategies when they read. Writing is fundamental to most of these activities. The very act of writing not only reflects thinking, but actually stimulates it. Beginning writing activities for each unit, then, consist of exploratory journal E n g l i s h J o u r n a l writing, focused responses, and reflective pieces. These activities, what Peter Elbow calls first-order writing, help students to develop or “complicate” their thinking, and they are, of course, by nature active, eliciting discovery exploration, and hypothesis. To help our students, particularly younger students, figure out how to begin to respond, we model our own thinking processes. As we read aloud a text, we make explicit to students what we are thinking. We consider implications of the title, make predictions, and ask ourselves questions: Who is this person? What is he like? What is he doing? Why is he acting in a particular way? We attempt to answer these questions as we learn new information. We also try to show how we connect the events in the text to events in our own lives, to other books we have read, to movies we have seen. After modeling our thinking for about a third of the story, we ask the class to list what they have noticed about our strategies. The students then continue to read the story and, in journals or with a partner, practice responding and building meaning, using the strategies modeled. Supporting the premise that “all learning begins with a question,” we frequently ask our students to jot down all questions that a literary text raises. Next, we sometimes have our students complete
a “write along.” This process began as a “thinkaloud” modeling technique for the beginning of a book where the students shared their thought processes with the rest of the class (Davey 44–47). However, we soon modified this technique to the “write-along,” where they do the same thing, but on paper. After each paragraph readers write about what went on in their heads during the reading: what they visualized, what they discovered, what words they didn’t recognize, what expectations were aroused, etc. This method, while time consuming, is particularly effective with less able students. Not only do they learn from their peers during classsharing, but the act of writing about one paragraph at a time engages them more fully in actually thinking about what they read, while also guiding them to attend to the specific details of the passage. A more sophisticated version of the “write along” is Vendler’s “line-by-line” technique used for poetry. Students produce wonderful responses to poetry with this technique. For a unit on Shakespeare’s sonnets the class began with Sonnet 73 (“That time of year . . .”), writing all the thoughts and questions that surfaced in their minds after reading each line of the poem. Together they shared their thoughts, discussing images, shifts in meaning, and implications. Next, pairs of students chose two sonnets, wrote line-by-lines for both sonnets,
shared and discussed them with each other, and then each student in the pair elected to write an analysis of one sonnet. The resulting essays were wonderful and revealed close, thoughtful analyses of the twenty or so sonnets selected. Supporting the premise that “all learning begins with a question,” we frequently ask our students to jot down all questions that a literary text raises. Upon completing their list of questions, students are asked to reread the piece and then write a response that focuses on some or all of the questions they originally asked. This focused response can then be used to generate topics for an essay, analyzing more fully the meaning they have constructed. Recently a group of ninth-grade students followed this procedure for “Reunion,” which appeared on the 1988 AP exam. They developed perceptive questions about point of view, theme, author’s purpose, etc. They asked, Why hasn’t the narrator seen his father since the divorce? Why did he suddenly want to see his father? Why is the father “his future, his doom”? What significance does the narrator’s journey hold? Their ensuing responses led to perceptive analyses of the prose piece. One student wrote about her embarrassment for the boy in “Reunion.” She also explored the possible reasons for the father’s failure to “grow up” as well as the boy’s assumption that he must become like his father. She also connected the piece to Of Mice and Men and Tuck Everlasting. Her final essay stressed the feelings of loneliness the boy reveals as he struggles to sort out the complex emotions that surface from seeing his father. Paraphrasing is an activity that even our more able students benefit from, for we agree with Ann Berthoff that it is an essential but often neglected reading skill (19–20). Last June a group of sophomore students completing an end-of-the year review were impressed with how much they remembered of Antigone, which they had studied months before. When the teacher commented on their recollection, one student countered with, “Well, what did you expect? We practically had to rewrite the whole play in our journals.” And the juniors who had been working on this strategy most of the year said that they knew they really understood something when they could put it in their own words. One commented, “If I get fouled up when trying to explain [what I’ve read to someone else], I know I have to read it over.” Another more open-ended journal activity that encourages students to return to a text and read more closely is to have them select and write about sentences that they think are significant. They can then share their ideas in pairs, come to some agreement as to which sentences seem most important, and even rank order the sentences. This procedure encourages students to begin to think about thematic implications and gives them solid quotes to integrate into any essay they may write on the text. Last year one student with many past failures captured the merit of this system when he struggled to find a quote with which to begin his essay. “I base the whole idea for my paper on that quote,” he said. In addition to these writing activities that help students think, question, and wonder as a means of constructing meaning, we have also come to realize that, as texts become denser, more ambiguous, and more challenging, students need direct instruction on how to figure out some of the more literal levels of meaning—what Richards refers to as “construing meaning.” As Chapman notes, children must become conscious of language structure, and in order for this to happen, factors of that structure— including language variety, tone, and elements of cohesion—must be made explicit. Cohesion can be described as the things within a text that provide clues for the integration of meaning. Linguists refer to anaphora, the process of linking what is being read now with what went before, and to anaphoric chains, the linguistic linking mechanisms that tie texts together, including reference groups, substitutions, ellipses, conjunctions, and lexical cohesion. Chapman says that some students only come to grasp the use of reference groups (e.g., personal or demonstrative pronouns), substitutions (appositives), and ellipses (omissions) late in secondary school. Students in two junior classes concentrated on lexical chains throughout the year. Some students had never before understood the connection between these ideas—which they had thought of as “grammar”—and the unraveling of challenging passages in reading. One of the first activities was with Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem “The Chambered Nautilus,” found in most junior anthologies. Classes commonly had difficulty with this poem because they missed the referents for the appositives or the places where there are pronoun shifts. An added difficulty is the use of metaphors, so that in the first stanza, for example, the pronoun “its” in line four refers grammatically to “the venturous bark,” itself an appositive for the “ship of pearl,” which is a metaphor for the nautilus shell. Asked during third term what they had learned from the work we had done with several reading strategies, one student said, “When I read something that jumps around from he to she to it, I . . . stop and think about each one. In the past I probably would have taken a less productive approach.” Her classmate wrote that in the past she would get “confused” because she “would think that one pronoun always referred to the same thing. But when we [worked on] this, I realized, ‘duh,’ it doesn’t always refer to the same thing.”
In June the students were asked to respond specifically to the work we had done on the lexical chains. Most felt that their awareness of these connections had made a difference, especially in their reading of poems and particularly dense prose. A young man commented: At first it wasn’t a big deal to [identify the antecedents to the pronouns]. Then we started reading more poetry, which is confusing to me anyway. It helped out a great deal to have . . . skill in [finding] what the pronoun refers to. For example, in “First Death in Nova Scotia” the second stanza has tons of his’s. After looking for a while you could finally figure out that they refer to the loon. A classmate said, “More difficult selections become easier because I can make connections. Seemingly impossible poems become simple.” Metacognition In spite of their success, all of these activities by themselves are not enough. While they provide lots of opportunities for students to practice various strategies, they do not necessarily help students recognize when to apply them; therefore, students also need to develop a conscious awareness of exactly how strategies help them to transact with texts. A few years ago we put into place a performance assessment program that asks students at the beginning of the year to complete self-evaluations of reading. This one-time evaluation, however, was not enough, for although many students would check off that they regularly “question, wonder and hypothesize” when they read, “reread and examine sections of the text that are confusing or ambiguous,” “broaden or change [their] original interpretation when necessary,” and “recognize and evaluate the point of view of the narrator,” their written responses suggested that they did not in fact practice these strategies. We began by asking our students to comment on their strengths as readers. We soon realized that we were not providing enough specific and formal opportunities for students to do this kind of reflecting. Because we had not asked students to think about reading strategies and evaluate their own reading processes on a consistent basis, they had not been able to internalize understandings to the degree we had hoped. Jack Thomson advocates providing ongoing opportunities for helping students become conscious of the constructive strategies they use in their reading, for in doing so they can move to higher levels of response and gain greater control of what they are reading: This reflexive understanding is very powerful knowledge, and it helps people control their own learning processes. If we know what we know, and if we know how we came to know it, we are powerful people . . . [And] once readers realize how and why they have read a text in a particular way, they can then choose to read it in alternative ways. (132, 144) Recently, we decided to incorporate more frequent opportunities for students to reflect on and analyze their reading practices. While we have always suggested that students test their interpretations by making sure that their ideas are not contradicted by elements of the text, and, as Wilhelm says, “Nothing is projected for which there is no verbal basis” (27), students have not found this kind of self-testing easy. Again, by providing specific occasions for them to revisit reading responses, perhaps students would become more self-conscious and more in control of the way they respond to texts. We began by asking our students to comment on their strengths as readers. Some of the more sophisticated responses included such comments as, “I read over sections more than once and look for different meanings,” or “I look for things that could possibly be used for documenting a theme later on.” However, like their self-evaluations, their responses in reading journals did not support their assessment of their reading strengths. For instance, one group of students read and responded to a series of short stories and autobiographical excerpts such as Joyce’s “Eveline” and Canin’s “Lies.” In these responses they tended to evaluate the characters’ decisions in moral terms; they failed to consider the author’s criticism of the world in which the character lived; and they neglected to consider the implications of the character’s language or what the character said as an indication of who the character might be. Although teacher comments— What do you mean by this? What might be the character’s motivation? What does this show about her? Don’t stray so far from the text.—helped somewhat, students did not necessarily apply this kind of practice to the next story they read. Even when specifically directed to consider endings carefully and to notice how the words the characters use provide wonderful clues about the character, the students did not find it easy to apply guidelines. What is interesting, though, is that the students, on the whole, did a very thorough job of responding to their peers. They made the following kinds of statements: Discuss the ending further; what does she mean by her last sentence? How has she emotionally changed? What do you make of this? What are Alice’s characteristics that lead you to say this? Why do you think she does this? What fascinates us is that they can make these kinds of statements about their peer’s work but still continue to misread themselves. Perhaps having the language to describe one’s reading process is just the first step. Perhaps, like the reading process itself, any conscious application of strategies is a recursive as well as a spiraling procedure. It is recursive in that it begins and returns to an act of reading and spiraling in that each act of reflecting should help the reader gain increasing control over strategies. We asked our students to think about all the steps they go through from the time they begin to read to the time they feel they have made sense of what they have read. Another metacognitive activity that we now use at intervals is to ask the students to reread all of their responses, as well as the comments we had written on them, and then write again about their strengths and weaknesses as readers. One student listed several items she needed to work on: “to expand ideas instead of dropping them, to explore implications, to be less vague and define words, to avoid overstatements.” Another student wrote that she needs “to try to go deeper into the text and explore possible implications . . . and try not to use big morals and other overstatements.” Another said that she wanted “to work on examining the author’s ideas word by word . . . and to work more on trying to figure out the point of the story.” A fourth said that he wanted to develop his ideas more and to “consider the author’s point more and the author’s attitude toward the character and his world.” Again, though, having the language and applying it to one’s reading processes were two different matters. After directly teaching a variety of specific strategies and providing diverse opportunities to reflect on how effectively the students used these strategies, we experimented with Walter Haney’s suggestion that the students visualize their reading processes through a series of drawings or pictograms. Haney, Professor of Research at the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy at Boston College’s Graduate School of Education, has been doing research on how drawings can be used to elicit, in a jargon-free way, feelings and thinking processes. In particular, he has had those in educational settings draw pictures as a means of gaining insight into perceptions about a school and its culture. Like Dr. Haney, we have found the pictogram activity to be a most enlightening exercise. We asked our students to think about all the steps they go through from the time they begin to read to the time they feel they have made sense of what they have read. “Think about all the thought processes you go through. Try to capture all that is involved in a series of drawings or pictograms,” we told them. Not only do these drawings provide us with a great deal of insight into how our students read, but they have also helped the students themselves to understand in a most concrete way some of the thinking that goes on in their brains when they read. We find that the range of strategies included in the drawings mirrors strikingly the level of sophistication of the reader. In analyzing the pictograms of a cross section of sixth graders, for example, we are able to see that they use a wide range of reading strategies. Most of the students indicate that they reread, sound out words, and look up words in the dictionary. They also try to construe the meaning of words from context and go back and forth trying to gain meaning. In addition, students use writing to help them understand a text. They take notes, respond in journals, write down definitions, and draw pictures. Many also stop periodically to check for comprehension. What is apparent, though, is that better readers usually have more strategies to call upon. One sixth grader, for instance, pictures ten steps as part of her reading process (Figure 1). Her pictograms reveal that she sees reading as a very complex activity where the reader has to visualize what is happening; develop questions about any difficult passages; consider how the text relates to life; and, through writing, construct a meaning. Her pictogram also delineates reading as a recursive process of questioning, hypothesizing, writing, rereading, more speculating, and more writing. While indicative of some fairly mature reading strategies, her drawing includes steps that are typical of many of the sixth graders who participated in this exercise. We credit this understanding to the increasing use of reading journals, literature circles, and performance assessment in the elementary grades. E n g l i s h J o u r n a l 51 Overall, though, what we notice in their pictograms is that sixth graders tend to be more concerned with sounding out words and finding their meanings than are older students. (Interestingly, though, older students concentrate on the word level when they encounter very challenging reading such as poems whose meaning is often too cryptic to be derived from context.) Some sixth graders, however, depend too much on this narrow range of strategies. A second sixth grader captures the reading processes of students who are still struggling at the word level. Some of these students are absorbed with word meanings, and some, like the one whose pictogram appears in Figure 2, sees reading as decoding. To this student reading is simply a process of sounding out words. If he can read the words, he has “read” the book. Interestingly, we used to find more of these readers, even in high school, when phonics was sometimes emphasized at the expense of meaning. Instruction now focuses on a balanced program of both phonics and reading for meaning, decreasing the numbers of students who are primarily word callers. An analysis of a cross-section of drawings by older students provides equally fascinating insights into their reading processes. (Figure 3 is a representative drawing.) One characteristic of almost all of the drawings is the absence of any reference to a teacher. Given all the arguments critics have made over the years about how teachers have made students dependent on their authority and on their questions, we think these pictograms are a startling indication that reader-response practices have at least removed the teacher from center stage. Another item that most students include in their drawings has to do with the act of writing. In some form or other these students, like many of the sixth graders, indicate that writing is an integral part of the way they construct meaning. Whether they are sitting at desks, lying on their beds, or using symbols to represent various steps, journals,pencils, and pictograms of stick figures writing are evident in each visualization. Again, perhaps more than we have realized, reader-response theory has influenced our students’ reading processes. The very fact that they indicate that they can write about a text without teacher intervention suggests an overall confidence in reading ability that we did not see seven or eight years ago. Another generality that surfaces is the students’ awareness of the recursive nature of reading. The majority capture in some way the act of rereading, revisiting, or rethinking some part of the text being read. Some even devote more than one pictogram to this rereading, rethinking procedure. In interviews they verified that they reread in order to look more closely at specific words and also to make sense of confusing passages. One student mentioned that he used to think that rereading was bad. “Now I learned that this is good because it allows me to pick up details I missed the first time.” Another student in his visualization has the stick figure say, “Step 4 repeat steps 2 (I’m reading it again for subtleties.) and 3 (I’m confused at some points.)” Several also make specific reference to times of confusion when they read. They indicate confusion either through the use of a question mark in a bubble above a head or through statements in the bubbles such as, “I don’t know what’s going on here,” or “I’m confused.” An equal number of students depict light bulbs above the head. One student even has two light bulbs at two different points in her ten-step reading process. These question marks and light bulbs suggest very active kinds of reading, reading where the students seem to struggle to cope with complex or difficult passages and to construct meaning out of that confusion. The majority of the students, too, in bubbles above the thinkers’ heads, draw scenes from what they are reading, indicating that visualizing characters and actions in their heads is an ongoing part of their reading processes. A large number of students, in addition, include a minimum of five steps as part of their reading process visualization, while most have many more steps. Perhaps the number of steps that students use to describe their reading processes reflects, to some degree, their awareness of all that they must do as they try to make sense of a text. Interestingly, the students who include fewer steps also tend to write the least in their journal responses. Another item that appears on many of the visualizations of older students involves some kind of discussion, either between two students or in a group in a class setting. Some even add both small-group and whole-class discussions. In interviews they state that discussion is often key to the way they make sense of a text. Student talk helps them to process their thinking, and the ideas of others inspire them to make connections and come up with new understandings. The group discussion, then, does not conclude the series of drawings but instead serves as a tool for the student’s rethinking. Typical of those who draw about student talk, one student pictures light bulbs above the One student mentioned that he used to think that rereading was bad. students’ heads in group discussion, while another member of the group has bubbled above his head the words, “I never thought of that.” In other words, students feel that group or class discussions do not provide them with a final message about the text. The discussion, instead, helps them to think in new ways about the text and to integrate these new ideas with the ones they have already formed. Several pictograms indicate changes in mood: frustration, perplexity, then elation. Many students, in fact, end their visualizations with a pictogram of a smiling face. These variations, however, also seem to verify that the students perceive that reading is not a passive activity and that they must actually “transact” with the text if any meaning is to be constructed. A pictogram drawn by a senior (Figure 4) illustrates the sophisticated reading strategies an excellent reader can orchestrate. During an interview this student confidently and unhesitatingly explained his visualization: I always read with a pen or pencil in hand as I was taught. I jot down passages that I find important. The first thing I do is discover the point of view—the head with the I, He, They—where they’re speaking from so that I can tell what might be true or false. Next—the picture with the earth, sun, and stars—I look for connections to the universal level of meaning. The three faces, happy, sad, and no expression, basically represent the attitude of the character involved, what his thoughts are, whether positive or negative. The tree, rock and animal also relate to relationships, the relationship to nature. The picture of the head with a brain represents what the character might be thinking. The question mark relates to the purpose of the character’s existence and the various aspects of his personality. The arrows pointing at the character relate to all the external forces acting on the character. The three houses and a bunch of people represent society in general and how the character is accepted.
This student’s visualization is especially interesting and complex. In particular, his focus on all the forces at work on a character as well as how the character perceives those forces would suggest a willingness to be tentative as he reads, allowing new insights to lead tore considerations of meaning. The student did mention that his reading is still improving. “I’m OK at themes and analyzing the text, but I need to spend more time on specific language as well as point of view,” he said. Overall, though, he felt that drawing the actual steps of his reading process has made him much more conscious of what he should be doing when he reads. In addition to the wealth of information that we teachers have gathered from these drawings, the students’ follow-up interviews revealed that they, too, had learned a lot. As one student so succinctly said, “Now that I’m more conscious of this process, I can concentrate on doing these things when I read.” Many of us notice that, in subsequent journal entries, this visualization exercise has helped students apply more of the strategies mentioned in their pictograms. The overall improvement in reader-response activities most likely results from the accumulation of various metacognitive tasks that we have incorporated throughout our classes. But we also think that the pictograms of their thinking processes and the follow-up explanations for each of the steps pictured have been a force in helping students actually internalize these strategies. As Kathleen Black states, “This method [drawing pictures illustrating procedures] was used in the belief that the abstract, visual nature of the task would discourage students from giving standard and possibly untrue responses to the question of how they went about writing a paper” (207). The visualizations also counter, to some extent, concerns that any measures of metacognition may simply measure recall of taught procedures, not applied understandings (University of Oklahoma 1). From what we have seen in our students’ subsequent reading responses, Kathleen Black is right. Although Dedham students had been taught the procedures and even learned the language to describe reading processes, they had not always translated these procedures and this language into actual practice. The nonstandard approach of drawing pictograms, though, has encouraged students to think about how they think. The drawings, then, work in two ways: They bring to a conscious level what has been “below conscious awareness” (University of Oklahoma 1) at the same time that they reinforce and concretize the importance of higher-level thinking and reading strategies. The visualization activity, combined with a greater emphasis on direct instruction of strategies, increased opportunities for students to practice strategies, and the effort and time put into metacognitive activities has resulted, we conclude, in more probing, careful, open-minded reading. As Robert Marzano states in Assessing Student Outcomes,“Human beings have the ability to control their own behavior, even their own thought processes, by using effective habits of mind” (23). Selfassessment is at the heart of learning to develop these habits of mind. John Abbott, in his article on the kinds of classrooms that develop broad intelligence, agrees. He says, “The ability to think about your own thinking is essential in a world of continuous change. Through metacognition, we can develop skills that are genuinely transferable . . . This deep reflective capability is what helps us devel0p new possibilities”

Critical Media Literacy Resources

Resources
Listed are some media education resources designed to assist teachers:
The Association for Media Literacy www.aml.ca, provides visitors with articles and reviews; resources for teachers; and news about upcoming events, conferences and initiatives being undertaken by the AML. It also provides visitors with a connection to media education initiatives around the world through national and international organizations. The AML is the official subject association for Media Literacy in Ontario.
The CBC www.cbc.ca contains program schedules and streaming audio listening opportunities, but also offers transcripts of interviews and programs, as well as original writing by Canadian authors.
Center for Media Literacy www.medialit.org is an educational organization that provides professional development and educational resources nationally in the United States.
Don’t Buy It – Get Media Smart pbskids.org/dontbuyit is a website designed for elementary students. It features interactive activities for students, as well as informative sections for both teachers and parents.
The English Language Arts Network www.elan.on.ca provides ongoing support for teachers looking for new ideas.
Film Education (UK) www.filmeducation.org produces feature movie study aids for UK teachers.
British Film Institute www.bfi.org.uk supports film studies in the UK with a variety of quality resources, including courses, print, and online.
Independent Media Centre www.indymedia.org , Alternet www.alternet.org and Adbusters adbusters.org provide students with alternatives to mainstream media for news and information. Media studies promote a multiple-perspective approach to reading and viewing the media.
Media Awareness Network www.media-awareness.ca features a wide range of resources – in English et en Francais – including lessons and resources for teachers, information for parents, educational games and student modules.
Media Ed www.mediaed.org.uk is for teachers, students and anyone else who is interested in media and moving-image education in primary, secondary, further and informal education.
Media Education Kit for Teachers, Students and Parents
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001492/149278E.pdf
Written by several media educators for Unesco, this document can be downloaded for free as a PDF. It provides a balanced account of the field.
- 1 - Media Literacy: Resources Resources
Media Literacy Clearing House www.frankwbaker.com is a site that contains ongoing support for media education, primarily linked to U.S. initiatives.
The Media Literacy Resource Guide contains many useful teaching ideas and is available at the Government of Ontario Bookstore (1-800-668-9938).
Media Studies: K-12. Toronto: Toronto District School Board, 2005.
MuchMusic Media Education. http://www.muchmusic.com/mediaed/ This site provides visitors with information on MuchMusic’s media literacy and social issues programming. Broadcast dates for programs are listed and teachers are welcome to tape programs off-air. Study guides for the programs can be downloaded free of charge.
National Institute on Family and the Media (Mediawise) www.mediafamily.org is a website that seeks to educate and inform the public. The site also offers ideas and kits for purchase by educators.
National Public Radio www.npr.org offers similar features to those indicated for the CBC, but in an American context.
Newseum www.newseum.org is a site that archives mainstream news and includes today’s front-pages, where students can examine and retrieve hundreds of front pages from 40 countries.
Pulse 24 www.cp24.com contains both writing and video news stories.
Think Literacy 7-10. Ministry of Education. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/studentsuccess/thinkliteracy/files/ThinkLitMedia.pdf
This document contains practical ideas and strategies for the implementation of media literacy in the classroom.
YouTube www.youtube.com provides access to thousands of videos on a number of subjects.
There are also several books that may prove useful in the classroom:
Anderson, Careiro, Sinclair. Responding to Media Violence. Markham, ON: Pembroke Press, 1996. This book provides activities for the classroom, common perceptions and factors that influence children’s behaviours. Order directly through Pembroke Publishers.
Buckingham, David. Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture. 2003. (Blackwell is North American distributor). This is a comprehensive book, covering topics from ideology to using the new digital media. Order from Amazon.com
- 2 - Media Literacy: Resources Resources
Canadian Teachers’ Federation. Kids Take on Media – Full Report, Teacher/Student Activity Guide, Workshop for Parents. 2003, $10.00. This is a resource that includes the opinion of kids on subjects such as movies, TV, and video games. Order from http://www.ctf-fce.ca/e/publications/ctf_publications.asp
Duncan, Barry, Janine D’Ippolito, Cam Macpherson and Carolyn Wilson. Mass Media And Popular Culture (Version Two). Thomas Nelson, Toronto, 1996. After an introductory section that provides a conceptual framework for the study of media, the text is organized by themes: e.g. Representation, Global Citizen, Selling Values, New and Converging Technologies. There is also a binder of supplementary readings and materials for photocopying.
Beach, Richard. teachingmedialiteracy.com: A web-linked Guide to Resources and Activities. Teachers College Press, 2007. (In Canada, order through The University of Toronto Press.) This 130 page book covers all the key issues and skills necessary for fostering media literacy in the classroom.
Kozolanko, Kirsten. Ed. Media Education and Educating the Media. From the periodical Our schools, Ourselves. Fall 2007, Vol 17, no.1. $12.00. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives 410-75 Albert St., Ottawa, On K1P 5E7. This publication offers a good cross section of articles, both theoretical and practical.
Media Sense. Toronto: Thomas Nelson, 1998. Three activity-based books for elementary school students, ages 8-12. This provides numerous practical activities throughout.
Potter. Media Literacy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc, 2005. This is a book designed for the development of media literacy skills for students. Order it through Amazon.com .
- 3 - Media Literacy: Resources

Monday 21 April 2008

Free Encylopedia

http://www.veropedia.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wi/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wi/Main_Page

Mindset

Here is an interesting story with a moral to share. It's called 'Mindset'
As I was passing the elephants, I suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not.
I saw a trainer near by and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

"Well," he said, "when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free."
I was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn't, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Friday 11 April 2008

Information for Field Trips/Excursions

http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/school/events/teacherevents/default.asp

http://www.torontobotanicalgarden.ca/children/overview.htm

Casa Loma (Toronto)
http://www.casaloma.org/Main/MainDyn.asp
Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto)
http://www.rom.on.ca/?lang=en-CA
Toronto Zoo
http://www.torontozoo.com/schools/?lang=en-CA

The list of organizations offering free admission and discounts across Ontario keeps growing.

A number of recent examples among the growing list offering discounts to College members include:
- Adjustable Beds Plus (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA#bedsplus)

- Black Creek Pioneer Village (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA#black_creek)

- Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-
CA#bushplane)
- Dynamic Earth (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA#dynamic)

- Greg Frewin Theatre (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA#magic)

- Museums of Mississauga (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-
CA#mississauga_museums)
Mysteriously Yours (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA#mystery)

Toronto Heli Tours (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA#helitours)

Your membership card provides proof that you are a professional teacher licensed to teach in Ontario's publicly funded schools.
Be sure to show your card when you're purchasing supplies or visiting major attractions. Many book sellers, museums, zoos and office supply stores provide discounts to teachers.
For a complete list of organizations that offer discounts to members, see the College web site (http://www.oct.ca/discounts.aspx?lang=en-CA).
If you visit an attraction that's not on our discount list, you might ask them to consider participating in our discount program. Organizations can e-mail discounts@oct.ca for more information.

Wednesday 9 April 2008

Aristotle's Ethics For Everyone

Aristotle's Ethics for Everyone
For Aristotle, there's really nothing mysterious about ethics. People do what they do because they want to be happy. If only they were a little wiser, they might actually get what they want--by doing what's right.
Empiricist Ethics
Aristotle was an empiricist. Unlike his teacher, Plato, he rejected the idea that philosophy should be based mainly on theoretical investigations. Instead, Aristotle argued that you should start by taking a good, hard look at the world and derive your theories from what you find.
Aristotle's primary assumption is that everything has a purpose, or telos. An excellent object is one that fully achieves its purpose. A knife's purpose is to cut, so an excellent knife is one that cuts well. A human being's purpose--the thing that separates us from other animals--is rationality. So an excellent person is one who is fully rational.
Applied Wisdom
Of course, Aristotle realized that we can't just sit around rationalizing all day. We have to use our heads to make real-world decisions, including ethical ones. Aristotle called this "practical wisdom": the capacity to react appropriately to changing circumstances.
People get better at practical wisdom as they gain life experience. Children, for example, often desire bad things until parents teach them what's good. Adults, on the other hand, ought to be able to judge for themselves. Of course, even adults sometimes want bad things, but practice makes perfect. Aristotle thought that by habitually doing good, you can align your desires with what wisdom says is right.
Have a Good God
So what's right? According to Aristotle, the most important human desire is for eudaimonia, a Greek term that literally means "having a good god." The term is usually translated as "happiness," but a better translation might be "success" or "fulfillment." Wanting eudaimonia makes perfect sense, Aristotle says--as long as you understand that it isn't some fleeting emotion. Rather, such "fulfillment" is a by-product of living your life right. It's the ultimate perk of virtuous living.
Every virtue, Aristotle argues, is a "golden mean" between deficiency and excess. Courage, for example, is a happy medium between cowardice and foolhardiness. People who can't find such "golden means" are neither virtuous nor truly happy. They can't reach eudaimonia. Only the virtuous can.
Politic Behavior
Aristotle also said that we humans are intrinsically political beings. Our lives take on moral purpose through our interactions with other people--our families, friends, and fellow citizens--and no truly virtuous act benefits an individual at the expense of the community. Rather, virtuous folks find fulfillment within societies they fashion together.
Since we develop practical wisdom and virtue through constant practice, society clearly plays a key role in moral education. But instruction alone is never enough. "With regard to virtue," Aristotle writes, "it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it."
--Mark Diller

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Enjoy your Spring Garden

Springtime, Everyone!!!
Click on the link below. You will get a black page.
Click your mouse anywhere (& everywhere) on the page & see what happens! Better yet, click & drag your mouse over the black page... Enjoy!!
http://www.procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf

Sunday 30 March 2008

Character Development

"Good Character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are to some extent a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to built it piece by piece - by thought, choice, courage and determination." John Luther
"Character is the firm foundation stone upon which one must built to win respect. Just as no worthy building can be erected on a weak foundation, so no lasting reputation worthy of respect can be built on a weak character" R. C Samel
Character Education:
The main goal for Character Education is to help schools create a frame work that will help shape the lives of children in assisting them to become fully developed and well-rounded persons, who will become contributing members and assets to their society.
Character Development
The Finding Common Ground: Character Development in Ontario Schools, K-12 is the Ministry mandate which involves a community consultation process to identify character traits that everyone can embrace to infuse Character Development into the curriculum. In late fall, the Director, Gerry Connelly, shared the Character Development consultation process developed to engage school communities in helping to define what character really means for all of us in the TDSB. Some of you may have seen her speak on a video as she spoke to a group of grade sixes at Pierre LaPorte Middle School.
In her Director’s BLOG, Gerry expresses the shared belief that student success is dependent on a safe, caring, inclusive learning environment where every student feels valued. She stated that, in addition to academic improvement, we continue to focus on the social, physical and emotional development of our students. Much of this starts with teaching our students about the value of character – respecting themselves and each other, making positive contributions to their school and community, thinking critically and creatively. By supporting the heart and art of teaching and learning in our classrooms, hallways, and our communities, we are nurturing the joy of learning. From there, everything is possible.
Following are the attributes Chosen for TDSB schools:
Respect, Co-operation
Responsibility, Teamwork, Honesty
Kindness & Caring, Empathy
Integrity, Fairness and Perseverance
To see the Director's announcement click here.
Useful Websites on Character Educatuon
Ministry of Education:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/literacy/booklet2006.pdf
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/shared.pdf
http://www.curriculum.org/edu/character/
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/character.html
Other Sites
http://www.charactermatters.ca/
http://www.character.org/
http://www.cfchildren.org/
http://www.characterfirst.com/education/index.html
http://www.charactercounts.org/
www.positivecoach.org/
http://www.giraffe.org/
http://www.ethicsed.org/
http://www.amenetwork.org/
http://globalethics.org/
http://www.devstu.org/
http://www.characterplus.org/
http://www.bu.edu/education/caec/
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/
http://www.ethics.org/
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/SchoolsOnline/character.html
http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/Themes/Chacter_Education/
http://www.uen.org/utahlink/activities/view_activity.cgi?activity_id=5399
http://www.cortland.edu/www/c4n5rs/
http://www.ascd.org/
http://www.makeadifference.com/
http://www.dontlaugh.org/
http://education.ufl.edu/web/?pid=305
http://www.nncc.org/Perents/ga.angry.html
http://www.tweensandteensnews.com/index.php
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/inclusiveeducation/findresources/behavioursupporttoolkit.asp
http://sitc.education.ed.ac.uk/Dealing_With_Disruption
http://lacoe.edu/
http://www.actsofkindness.org/
www.hwdsb.on.ca/characterbuildshamilton/
http://www.freethechildren.com/
http://www.futureaces.org/
http://www.kidsareworthit.com/
http://www.metowe.org/
http://www.moralintelligence.com/
http://www.cfchildren.org/
http://www.tribes.com/
http://www.realdiscipline.com/
http://www.characteredu.com/
http://www.primaryideas.co.uk/index_files/otherstuff.html
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/banda/behaviour_nqt_course/ (This is a complete management course for new teachers.
http://www.senteacher.org/wk/certificates.php#
Signs(sign language ) for classroom management
http://www..drjean.org/html/monthly_act/act_2006/08_August/pg06a.html
Quotations
Looking for inspirational quotes on particular topics? Try the following websites.
http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html
http://www.quotesandsayings.com/finquoteframes.htm
Books
Character Matters: How to Help our Children Develop Good Judgement, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues by Dr. Thomas Lickona (Simon & Schuster, New York)
Growing Character: 99 Successful Strategies for the Elementary Classroom by Deb Austen Brown (Character Development Group Inc., Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Once Upon a Time: Storytelling to Teach Character and Prevent Bullying by Elisa Davy Pearmain (Character Development Group Inc., Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Parenting for Good: Real World Advice for Parents by Marvin Berkowitz (Character Development Group Inc., Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites by Marcia L. Tate (Corwin Press, California)
Smart & Good High Schools: Integrating Excellence and Ethics for Success in School, Work, and Beyond by Drs. Matthew Davidson and Thomas Lickona (Center for the 4th & 5th R's, State University New York, Cortland)

Wednesday 26 March 2008

Extraordinary people

Extraordinary people - The artist with no eyes, Esref Armagan
Please watch this....

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=L3AgO6H0H98&eurl=http://widget-58.slide.com/widgets/sf.swf

Monday 24 March 2008

Interactive Math and Various Math Sites

E-Lab
http://www.harcourtschool.com/elab/grade_3.html

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/grade_g_2.html

Base 10 Blocks
http://ejad.best.vwh.net/java/b10blocks/description.html

Data Handling
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revisewise/maths/data/

Various Math Sites
www.cyberbee.com/math.html
www.schooldiscovery.com/schrockguide/math.html
www.thecoo.edu/-aperter/mathsites.htm
www.math.rice.edu/-lanius/Lessons/
www.mathgoodies.com

Math Terms
www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com

Online Interactive Math Movies
www.knowthat.com
www.brainpop.com

Online Math Games
www.funbrain.com
www.lemonadegame.com

Also worth Exploring
www.figurethis.org
www.nelson.com
http://www.aaamath.com/
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/wspages/math.htm

PROBABILITY BOOK/WEB SITE
http://www.ksu.edu/smartbooks/Lesson004.html

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