"National Science Fair Aims to Breathe New Life into Science and Math for Kids"

National science fair aims to breathe new life into science and math for kids

Tracy A. Woodward/THE WASHINGTON POST - Rajon Simms (left) 9, Cherice Pettus, 8, and Julius Wright (right), 8, students from Valley View Elementary School in Oxon Hill, Md., look at the crew module of the Orion spacecraft on April 27 at the Washington Convention Center.

By Stefanie Dazio, Published: April 27The Washington Post

It’s a science fair on steroids.
Eyes widened behind glasses, hair whipped around in hurricane simulators and nimble fingers mimicked arthroscopic knee surgery techniques Friday at the second USA Science & Engineering Festival.

I’d like to hear about your experiences, negative and positive. I’m especially interested in speaking to families who feel they’ve been discouraged from enrolling or “counseled out.”

More than 13,000 kids got their geek on with Bill Nye “the Science Guy,” storm chasers and astronauts at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center for the first day of a three-day event designed to revive interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Seventh-graders Lucresse Djuidje, 13, and Jasmine Harris, 12, both from Silver Spring, were on a class field trip from White Oak Middle School. Lucresse is interested in space exploration, and Jasmine likes chemistry.

“It’s a good experience to come here,” Lucresse said at a quick lunch break. She wants to learn more about planets and see what lies ahead in space.
“Investment in science and technology is the key to our future,” Nye said. “It’s the best investment our society can make.”

Read more ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/national-science-fair-aims-to-breathe-new-life-into-science-and-math-for-kids/2012/04/27/gIQA6RTbmT_story.html

"First Lady Starts a Recipe Contest for Children"

First Lady Starts a Recipe Contest for Children

By JULIA MOSKIN

Michelle Obama and friends in the White House garden.

Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign will announce a nationwide recipe contest for children ages 8 to 12 on Monday afternoon, with a winner to be chosen from each state and territory. All 56 winners of the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge will attend a gala Kids’ “State Dinner,” to be hosted by Mrs. Obama at the White House in August (airfare and hotel included).

The challenge: invent a lunch recipe that is healthy, affordable and tasty, working within the Department of Agriculture’s nutrition guidelines. An entry can be either a full plate (roasted baby carrots with grilled tofu and black beans) or a dish (whole-wheat pizza with chicken, onions and peppers) as long as it includes most of the recommended food groups: vegetables, whole grains, protein (fish, poultry, meat, soy), dairy and fruit. Help from grown-ups is allowed, as needed; no unsupervised knife tasks or cooking over open flame, please. The deadline for entries is June 17.

Read more ... http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/first-lady-starts-a-recipe-contest-for-children/

"Top 5 Sites Your Kids Will Surf This Summer"

Top 5 Sites Your Kids Will Surf This Summer

Strategies to keep kids safe on their fave sites this summer.

by Julia D. Akpan | May. 7, 2012 |

The final school bell rings, and kids stream out of the building with nothing on their minds but three months of lying on the grass, riding bikes, going away to camp, and hours and hours of unsupervised Web surfing ... wait, what?

Welcome to summer vacation 2012, where your kids may be envisioning a vacation packed with tech time. Since you want fun, safe, and enriching places for your kid to visit, we've rounded up some of the most popular websites for kids, along with great parent tips to help you manage their experience.

Read more ...

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/new/top-5-sites-your-kids-will-surf-summer

"Making Schools Work"

Making Schools Work

By DAVID L. KIRP

Published: May 19, 2012

AMID the ceaseless and cacophonous debates about how to close the achievement gap, we’ve turned away from one tool that has been shown to work: school desegregation. That strategy, ushered in by the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, has been unceremoniously ushered out, an artifact in the museum of failed social experiments. The Supreme Court’s ruling that racially segregated schools were “inherently unequal” shook up the nation like no other decision of the 20th century. Civil rights advocates, who for years had been patiently laying the constitutional groundwork, cheered to the rafters, while segregationists mourned “Black Monday” and vowed “massive resistance.” But as the anniversary was observed this past week on May 17, it was hard not to notice that desegregation is effectively dead. In fact, we have been giving up on desegregation for a long time. In 1974, the Supreme Court rejected a metropolitan integration plan, leaving the increasingly black cities to fend for themselves.

Natalie Fobes/Corbis

Jimmy Dugar on his first day in 1978 at a mostly white elementary school in Cincinnati.

A generation later, public schools that had been ordered to integrate in the 1960s and 1970s became segregated once again, this time with the blessing of a new generation of justices. And five years ago, a splintered court delivered the coup de grâce when it decreed that a school district couldn’t voluntarily opt for the most modest kind of integration — giving parents a choice of which school their children would attend and treating race as a tiebreaker in deciding which children would go to the most popular schools. In the perverse logic of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., this amounted to “discriminating among individual students based on race.” That’s bad history, which, as Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in an impassioned dissent, “threaten[s] the promise of Brown.”

"Jean Craighead George, Children's Author, Dies at 92"

Jean Craighead George, Children’s Author, Dies at 92

Susan Farley for The New York Times

Jean Craighead George in her yard in Chappaqua, N.Y.

By MARGALIT FOX

Published: May 16, 2012

Jean Craighead George, a Newbery Award-winning writer for young people whose books brought the natural world from the Catskill Mountains to the Alaskan tundra to wild, luminous life, died on Tuesday in Mount Kisco, N.Y. She was 92.

Her family confirmed the death.

The author of more than 100 fiction and nonfiction titles that have collectively sold millions of copies, Ms. George was best known for two novels for older children, “My Side of the Mountain” (1959), which she also illustrated, and “Julie of the Wolves” (1972), illustrated by John Schoenherr. That book won the Newbery Medal — considered the Pulitzer Prize of children’s letters — in 1973.

“My Side of the Mountain” tells the story of Sam Gribley, a youth who forsakes a life of quiet desperation in New York City to live on his own in the Catskills wilderness. There, he survives by virtue of the deep sympathy with nature that animates all of Ms. George’s protagonists, until the modern world closes in again.

"Short Hills resident launches Bedtime Math"

Short Hills resident launches Bedtime Math

Thursday, May 17, 2012

BY ANDREA HUGHES

MANAGING EDITOR

Township resident Laura Bilodeau Overdeck wants to jumpstart children’s math skills using a familiar bedtime ritual.

Overdeck is chairwoman of the Advisory Board for Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth (CTY), vice chairwoman of the Board for Governor’s School of New Jersey and a trustee of Liberty Science Center and of Drew University. She recently launched Bedtime Math, a non-profit through which she emails and posts creatively worded math problems every day for parents to read their children before bed.
Provided free of charge, the problems use everything from animals and clothing to fantastical subjects such as "X-Ray Vision Carrots" to get children to count, add, subtract, figure out percentages and more. They are posted daily on www.bedtimemathproblem.org
The problems have different levels of difficulty for "wee ones" at preschool age, "little kids" in kindergarten through second grade and "big kids," in second grade onward. An answer key is posted with each set of problems.

Read more ...

http://www.northjersey.com/news/151831875_Township_resident_founds_Bedtime_Math_program.html

"Are We Wringing the Creativity out of Kids?"

May 4, 2012 | 9:50 AM | By Annie Murphy Paul

LEARNING SMARTER

Are We Wringing the Creativity Out of Kids?

Comstock

Do you think you’re creative?”

Ask this question of a group of second-graders, and about 95 percent of them will answer “Yes.” Three years later, when the kids are in fifth grade, that proportion will drop to 50 percent—and by the time they’re seniors in high school, it’s down to 5 percent.

Author Jonah Lehrer recently discussed the implications of these sobering statistics for education in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In a talk and question-and-answer session he participated in at the Commonwealth Club in Palo Alto, California, last month, Lehrer talked about why children lose their playful sense of creativity as they get older, and how we can help them hang on to it.

Lehrer began by quoting Picasso: “Every child is born an artist. The problems begin once we start to grow up.” Actually, Lehrer noted, the problems begin in a very specific time frame: the years covering third, fourth, and fifth grade. It’s during this period, he says, that many kids “conclude that they are not creative, and this is in large part because they start to realize that that their drawing is not quite as pretty as they would like, that they can put the brush in the wrong place, that their short stories don’t live up to their expectations—so they become self-conscious and self-aware, and then they shut themselves down.” Parents and teachers must intervene during this crucial window to ensure that children’s creativity doesn’t wither.

“Right now we are grooming our kids to think in a very particular way, which assumes that the right way to be thinking is to be attentive, to stare straight ahead.”

One such intervention: “We have to expand our notion of what productivity means,” said Lehrer. “Right now we are grooming our kids to think in a very particular way, which assumes that the right way to be thinking is to be attentive, to stare straight ahead—which is why we diagnose 20 percent of kids in many classrooms as having attention deficit disorders, when the research is actually more complicated.”

Read more ...

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/05/are-we-wringing-the-creativity-out-of-kids/

"Spine Poetry"

Fourth graders celebrated “April is National Poetry Month” in the library by composing “spine” poetry using book titles! The girls chose from the fiction section and then took pictures of their verses. Mrs. Hastings loaded the photos onto the presentation site, Prezi, so the girls could share their work. As an added bonus to the learning experience, the girls put the books they used back on the shelves in Dewey Decimal System order! Enjoy!!

http://prezi.com/usle16wuez_8/4b-spine-poetry/

http://prezi.com/nrefkyobkkz3/4a-spine-poetry/

"The Algebra Problem"

Introducing letters to represent quantities, as in these first-grade math problems, helps students prepare for algebra. (Source: Curriculum Research and Development Group, Univ. of Hawaii)

Volume 28, Number 3
May/June 2012

The Algebra Problem

How to elicit algebraic thinking in students before eighth grade

By LAURA PAPPANO

It’s Crazy Hair Day at Marshall Elementary School in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood—which is perfect, because Tufts University researcher Bárbara Brizuela has brought a hat.

In the stovepipe style and made from oaktag paper, the hat is one foot tall. Brizuela then asks, “If I’m five and a half feet tall, how tall will I be with the hat on?” Second-grader Jasmine, smiley in a pink sweatsuit, answers, “Six and a half feet.” Rather than say, “Right!” Brizuela offers another question: “How do you know?”

Thus begins a math conversation that researchers like Brizuela believe may hold the key to tackling one of our biggest school bugaboos: algebra. As they talk, Jasmine uses words, bar graphs, and a table to describe how tall each person they discuss will be if they put on the hat. Jasmine creates a rule—“add one foot to the number you already had”—and applies it to an imaginary person 100 feet tall.

Brizuela even throws out a variable. “So, to show someone whose height I don’t know, I will use z feet,” she says, adding a z to Jasmine’s table. “What should I do now?” Jasmine pauses. “This is kind of hard,” she says. Brizuela, whose pilot study explores mathematical thinking among children in grades K–2, understands. “Would you like to use a different letter?” she asks, erasing the z and replacing it with a y. Jasmine smiles. She picks up her pencil and easily jots down the rule: y + 1 = z feet.

"Boggle the Mind"

Boggle the Mind

‘Imagine,’ by Jonah Lehrer

By CHRISTOPHER CHABRIS

Published: May 11, 2012

Have you ever wondered how Nike came by its famous slogan “Just Do It”? Neither have I, but it’s an interesting story. Dan Wieden was searching for a tag line to unify a series of ads his agency was making for Nike. Late one night he suddenly thought about the convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, whose last words before his execution were “Let’s do it.” Sitting at his desk Wieden turned that phrase over in his mind until it became “Just do it.” Accolades ensued.

Enlarge This Image

Illustration by MSMDNYC

IMAGINE

How Creativity Works

By Jonah Lehrer

Illustrated. 279 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $26.

Reflecting later, Wieden realized he’d thought of Gilmore because someone at work had mentioned Norman Mailer recently, and Wieden knew that Mailer had written a book about Gilmore. Without that serendipitous chain of associations, Nike might have wound up with a different slogan: “A sneaker is forever”? “Got kicks”?

Jonah Lehrer tells many stories like this in “Imagine: How Creativity Works.” Along with admen, his examples come from famous musicians and poets, obscure scientists, even large corporations like 3M and Eli Lilly. He deploys them to illustrate the science of creativity, and he derives from that science some tips for readers to become more creative and for society to promote innovative thinking.

"Concussions May Be More Severe in Girls and Young Athletes"

Concussions May Be More Severe in Girls and Young Athletes

Fitness |

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

| May 10, 2012, 12:00 pm

New research has found that younger athletes and those who are female show more symptoms and take longer to recover from a concussion than athletes who are male or older.

Joe Paull/The Ledger-Enquirer, via Associated Press New research has found that younger athletes and those who are female show more symptoms and take longer to recover from a concussion than athletes who are male or older.

During a soccer game two years ago, Megan Wirtz, a goalie for her high school team, was bending down to pick up a ball when an opposing player mistakenly kicked her in the face.
Her face swollen and bleeding, Megan was taken to an emergency room and stitched up. No one realized she had suffered a severe concussion until three weeks later, when a player ran into her during another game and she fell to the ground, suffering a seizure on the field. Doctors believe she experienced what’s known as second impact syndrome, a sequence of events in which a child or teenager sustains a hit before a concussion fully heals, which can cause the brain to bleed or swell, even if the second impact is a moderate one.

“In retrospect, we hadn’t thought as much about her brain as we clearly should have,” said her mother, Barbara Wirtz, a nurse in East Lansing, Mich. “She doesn’t have lingering problems like some players do. We were very lucky in that regard. But the reality is if she continues to play, it could happen again.”
New research in the latest issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine shows that athletes like Megan may be particularly susceptible to the damaging effects of a concussion. The research found that younger athletes and those who are female show more symptoms and take longer to recover from a concussion than athletes who are male or older.

Read more ... http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/concussions-may-be-more-severe-in-girls-and-young-athletes/

"Getting Lessons on Water by Designing a Playground"

Getting Lessons on Water by Designing a Playground

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Maddalena Polletta, of the Trust for Public Land, using a model to show students how water effects the city and the environment.

By LISA W. FODERARO

Published: May 7, 2012

The sixth graders at Stephen A. Halsey Junior High School 157 in Queens have a tough assignment before them: design a new playground that will transform a sea of black asphalt at their school into a recreational oasis — and, while they are at it, help clean up New York City’s waterways.

So, in addition to benches, play equipment, ball courts and drinking fountains, their wish list includes a butterfly garden and a gravel-lined turf field. Those features will capture precipitation and prevent it from overloading the city’s sewer system, which, in the case of their Rego Park neighborhood, spews raw sewage into Flushing Bay when it rains.

In the process, the children are learning about arcane urban infrastructure and bureaucratese, like “combined storm-sewer runoff.” And they are gaining appreciation for the absorbent powers of trees and grass, as well as roof gardens, rain barrels and permeable pavers — bricks that soak up water.

"New Kids' Books: What to Read Next"

New Kids' Books: What to Read Next

by Regan McMahon | May. 2, 2012 | Family media management

Finding the right book for your kid can be a challenge. But if you guess right and keep new ones coming, you may be on your way to raising a lifelong reader.
Every month we highlight a few books for different ages -- some exceptional titles that could be the perfect thing to perk your kid's interest, get your reader hooked on a new author, or rediscover an old favorite. Here are our picks for May:

For kids 3 to 7, there's Oliver, by Judith Rossell, a picture book that celebrates a young boy's irrepressible imagination. Oliver is curious about everything, peppering his mom with questions about penguins and his suspicion that there's a monster below the bathtub drain because he hears it gurgling. A do-it-yourself kind of kid, he fashions a submarine out of cardboard and tape and goes down the drain on an adventure that leads him to friendly vacationing penguins. Kids will find many amusing details in Rossell's fanciful mixed-media illustrations, making this a perfect lap-reading experience.
For readers 8 to 12, there's The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy, the story of four princes from classic fairy tales who band together on mission to rescue runaway Cinderella. But in this funny fairy tale spoof, princesses don't really need rescuing. They're as resourceful as their oddball princes are heroic. A modern sensibility infuses the medieval setting to great hilarity.

"Kids Haven't Changed; Kindergarten Has"

Page 1 2

New Haven teacher Elise Goodhue tries to fit play into the rigors of kindergarten

Kids Haven’t Changed; Kindergarten Has

New data support a return to “balance” in kindergarten

By LAURA PAPPANO

In the ongoing battle over kindergarten—has exploratory play been shunted aside for first-grade-style pencil-and-paper work?—one of the nation’s oldest voices in child development is weighing in with historic data.

The Gesell Institute for Human Development, named for pioneering founder of the Yale Child Study Center, Arnold Gesell, and known worldwide for its popular parenting series Your One-Year-Old through Your Ten- to Fourteen-Year-Old, will share the results of an 18-month study at a conference in New Haven, Conn. on October 15.

The national study, undertaken to determine how child development in 2010 relates to Gesell’s historic observations, used key assessment items identical to those Gesell created as the basis for his developmental “schedules” which were published in 1925, 1940, and after his death by colleagues Louise Bates Ames and Frances Ilg in 1964 and 1979.

Given the current generation of children that—to many adults at least—appear eerily wise, worldly, and technologically savvy, these new data allowed Gesell researchers to ask some provocative questions: Have kids gotten smarter? Can they learn things sooner? What effect has modern culture had on child development?

Read more ... http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/479

"Understanding Children, Yet Wanting Them to Grow Up a Bit"

Understanding Children, Yet Wanting Them to Grow Up a Bit

The cliché about children’s book writers is that they’re sensitive, mewling types — wearers of cardigans, dispensing uplift as if it were Purell hand sanitizer.

Frank Armstrong/Rosenbach Museum and Library, via EPA

Maurice Sendak reading "Where the Wild Things Are" at the Rosenbach Library and Museum in Philadelphia in 1985.

The best, of course, from the Brothers Grimm through Roald Dahl and the brilliant Maurice Sendak, who died on Tuesday, have always been exactly the opposite. Their stuff is anarchic and verges on the nightmarish. These writers want children to take themselves seriously. They want them to grow up a bit, starting now.

Mr. Sendak’s books weren’t in my house when I was a child, an omission that, I have come to realize, was a perverse kind of gift. I got to discover them while reading them aloud, approximately 250 times each, to my two children. “Children are made readers,” the writer Emilie Buchwald said, “on the laps of their parents.” I was made a Sendak devotee with my children on my lap, and I could sense their delight reinforcing my own.

His acknowledged classic is “Where the Wild Things Are” (1963), about Max, who is sent to bed without supper only to find that a tangled forest and a wild sea sprout from his imagination. He stares down fanged monsters by looking into their yellow eyes without blinking. He is made “the king of all wild things.” He throws what is surely the greatest dance party in kid-lit history, engaging the monsters in a “wild rumpus” that Don Cornelius, the creator of “Soul Train,” would envy.

By DWIGHT GARNER

"Harvard and M.I.T. Team Up to Offer Free Online Courses"

Harvard and M.I.T. Team Up to Offer Free Online Courses

Published: May 2, 2012

In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans — one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world — Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities.

Harvard’s involvement follows M.I.T.’s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project, MITx. Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, some 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam. Those who complete the course will get a certificate of mastery and a grade, but no official credit. Similarly, edX courses will offer a certificate but not credit.

By TAMAR LEWIN

"Motherhood vs. Feminism"

Motherhood vs. Feminism

Debaters

Attachment Parenting Is Feminism

Mayim Bialik, actress and author of "Beyond the Sling"
Working Moms Are Right to Be Realistic

Heather McDonald, comedian, producer and author
Good Riddance to Feminism!

LaShaun Williams, columnist and blogger
We Want Perfection, but Also Need Sleep

Erica Jong, author
Martyr Mothering Has Drawbacks

Pamela Druckerman, author, "Bringing Up Bébé"
It’s About Parenting, Not ‘Mothering’

Annie Urban, blogger at PhD in Parenting
Let’s Not Pass Judgment

Maria Blois, author, "Babywearing"

Introduction

André da Loba

The U.S. publication of “The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women” by the French feminist Elisabeth Badinter is getting a lot of attention in the press; indeed, it’s a book club feature on the Motherlode blog in The New York Times.
Is Badinter right? Has women’s obsession with being the perfect mother destroyed feminism? In particular, has this trend of “attachment parenting” been bad for working moms?
Read the Discussion »

"Where's the Joy in Learning?"

“Where’s the Joy in Learning?”

April 19, 2012 | 10:47 AM | By Annie Murphy Paul

Where’s the Joy in Learning?

Flickr:WoodleyWonderworks
A school is not a desert of emotions,” begins an article by Finnish educators Taina Rantala and Kaarina Määttä, published last month in the journal Early Child Development and Care. But you’d never know that by looking at the scientific literature.
“In the field of educational psychology, research on feelings is lacking,” the authors note, “and the little that does exist has focused more on negative rather than positive feelings.” Rantala, the principal of an elementary school in the city of Rovaniemi, and Määttä, a professor of psychology at the University of Lapland, set out to remedy this oversight by studying one emotion in particular: joy.
The researchers followed a single class through first and second grade, documenting the students’ emotions with photographs and videos. Through what they call “ethnographic observation,” Rantala and Määttä identified the circumstances that were most likely to produce joy in the classroom. No doubt many pupils would agree with this example of their findings: “The joy of learning does not include listening to prolonged speeches.”

Read more ... http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/wheres-the-joy-in-learning/

"Play, Passion, Purpose, and Project Based Learning"

Play, Passion, Purpose, and Project Based Learning: Thoughts on Tony Wagner’s new book, Creating Innovators:

—

“Increasingly in 21st c., what you know is far less important than what you can do with what you know.”

“Academic content is not very useful in and of itself. It is knowing how to apply it in new situations or to new problems that matters most in the world of innovation.”

“Transforming classroom experience at every level essential to develop capacities to become innovators.”

“Collaborative, project-based, interdisciplinary approaches to learning have a profound effect on the development of young persons [to become innovators].”

There are three essential interrelated elements: Play, Passion, and Purpose. ”Whether, and to what extent, parents, teachers, and employers, encourage these qualities makes an enormous difference in the lives of young innovators.”

“High Tech High and New Tech Network provide outstanding examples of educating students to develop innovation skills… Together, High Tech High and Olin College provide an outline of 8 years of educating for innovation.”

—

Wagner-Creating-Innovators-book-cover-resized

This book, like Dr. Wagner’s previous one, has many different audiences; it is not a book exclusively for K-12 educators, and includes among its targets parents of young and school-age children, post-secondary educators, and, more generally, those many general nonfiction readers who have been influenced by Thomas Friedman to recognize that the “World is [Now] Flat” and it is essential that we confront the changing demands of our fast-changing times. Frankly, there are times at which as a reader who is an educator I feel a little cheated that there isn’t more attention to and more information about what we should and can do to strengthen educating for innovation in K-12 learning, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this book: I do recommend this book, wholeheartedly.

Read more ...

http://21k12blog.net/2012/04/15/play-passion-purpose-and-project-based-learning-thoughts-on-tony-wagners-new-book-creating-innovators/

"Launching Summer Reading"

Donalyn Miller

Launching Summer Reading

By Donalyn Miller on April 22, 2012 9:01 AM

Reading research indicates that many children's reading ability declines between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. My sixth graders can tell you why this happens; they don't usually read much over the summer. Children can offset this summer reading slump by reading as few as four or five books over the summer. I, of course, would love for kids to read more than this small number of books! The summer break is a marvelous time for readers, freed from the mandates of assigned school reading, to explore topics and books of their own interest. While it is challenging to require or monitor students' summer reading, here are some suggestions for launching a school-wide summer reading initiative that encourages more children to read during summer break.

Provide lots of opportunities for students to recommend books. Hang recommendations on the walls in the hallways and in the library. Present book commercials over the announcements and in school newsletters. Provide student-created lists or podcasts on the school web site. Discussing books students might read over the summer sends a message that you expect them to read and gives students titles to consider.

Read more ... http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/2012/04/launching_summer_reading.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBookWhisperer+%28Teacher+Magazine+Blog%3A+The+Book+Whisperer%29

"Who are Lincoln Center Teaching Artists?"

Who are LCI Teaching Artists?

Recently, as we began highlighting our full-time teaching artists in this newsletter, a reader asked us to elaborate on the question, what are teaching artists? What is their role at LCI?
LCI’s teaching artists are professionals from the disciplines of dance, music, theater, and visual arts. Teaching artists serve as representatives of Lincoln Center Institute, bringing the arts and LCI’s pedagogy into classrooms locally, nationally and internationally. They design and implement classroom activities and professional development sessions. They work closely with educators in our partnering schools, guide them in the use of Imagination Lesson Plans, and are instrumental in the Institute’s professional development initiatives. Teaching artists conduct workshops and consultancies, and assist in the development of educator resources. LCI’s teaching artists are active in their artistic fields and structure their LCI work schedule so that it allows time for their creativity.
Teaching artists undergo an intensive training consisting of an immersion in the Institute’s philosophy and practice, followed by a teaching audition. Thereafter, they pursue continuous professional development at LCI to remain at the forefront of advances in education and LCI’s own pedagogical development.

Teaching artists possess a strong commitment to working with educators and young people. Teaching artists and educators share brainstorming meetings. Together, they design and implement each instructional unit, identify aesthetic elements in the work of art chosen for study, discuss teaching concepts, construct a curriculum, design activities, determine which resources should be used to provide a context to the study of the work of art, develop strategies for reflection and assessment, and build links with other areas of school life.
Teaching artists undergo an intensive training consisting of an immersion in the Institute’s philosophy and practice, followed by a teaching audition. Thereafter, they pursue continuous professional development at LCI to remain at the forefront of advances in education and LCI’s own pedagogical development.

Teaching artists possess a strong commitment to working with educators and young people. Teaching artists and educators share brainstorming meetings. Together, they design and implement each instructional unit, identify aesthetic elements in the work of art chosen for study, discuss teaching concepts, construct a curriculum, design activities, determine which resources should be used to provide a context to the study of the work of art, develop strategies for reflection and assessment, and build links with other areas of school life.

Many LCI teaching artists have gone on to become leaders of other arts and education organizations.

"What is Executive Function?"

What is Executive Function?

By NCLD Editorial Staff
Published: December 17 2010 | Updated: April 23 2012

Watch: Executive Function

Executive function is a set of mental processes that helps connect past experience with present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space.

If you have trouble with executive function, these things are more difficult to do. You may also show a weakness with working memory, which is like "seeing in your mind's eye." This is an important tool in guiding your actions.

As with other learning disabilities, problems with executive function can run in families. It can be seen at any age, but it tends to become more apparent as children move through the early elementary grades. This is when the demands of completing schoolwork independently can trigger signs of a problem with executive function.

Rad more:

http://www.ncld.org/ld-basics/ld-aamp-executive-functioning/basic-ef-facts/what-is-executive-function

"Insights from the Youngest Minds"

Profiles in Science | Elizabeth S. Spelke

Insights From the Youngest Minds

Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

Elizabeth S. Spelke: A video interview with the Harvard cognitive psychologist on babies and the nature of human knowledge.

By NATALIE ANGIER

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Seated in a cheerfully cramped monitoring room at the Harvard University Laboratory for Developmental Studies, Elizabeth S. Spelke, a professor of psychology and a pre-eminent researcher of the basic ingredient list from which all human knowledge is constructed, looked on expectantly as her students prepared a boisterous 8-month-old girl with dark curly hair for the onerous task of watching cartoons.

Profiles in Science

Elizabeth S. Spelke

This is the ninth in an occasional series of articles and videos about leaders in science.

Complete Series »

The video clips featured simple Keith Haring-type characters jumping, sliding and dancing from one group to another. The researchers’ objective, as with half a dozen similar projects under way in the lab, was to explore what infants understand about social groups and social expectations.

Yet even before the recording began, the 15-pound research subject made plain the scope of her social brain. She tracked conversations, stared at newcomers and burned off adult corneas with the brilliance of her smile. Dr. Spelke, who first came to prominence by delineating how infants learn about objects, numbers, the lay of the land, shook her head in self-mocking astonishment.

“Why did it take me 30 years to start studying this?” she said. “All this time I’ve been giving infants objects to hold, or spinning them around in a room to see how they navigate, when what they really wanted to do was engage with other people!”