Coming Events and Activities
Workshops & Events for Students, Teachers, Alumni & SOE Faculty
Using SmartBoards in the Classroom
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Doris Grasserbauer |
This hands-on workshop is offered for School of Education students, faculty, alumni and cooperating teachers. The workshops are structured around the experience level and the specific subject matter taught by the participants. For entry level, we will start with the basics and then dive into the interactive classroom possibilities depending on the needs and interests of the participants. During the advanced workshop you will work with the instructor to create your own classroom material. No matter what your level of experience, you will get a chance to use the SmartBoard.
Date:
- May 14, 2013 3 to 4pm NA 4/221 - Advanced
Click here to register for the workshop:
The workshop will be held at the Multimedia Center NAC 4/221. If the workshop has to be canceled you will be contacted via email. Assume your registration is confirmed unless you hear otherwise. Please note the session(s) you sign up for as reminders will not be sent out. |
Guided Play, Student Engagement, and Science Learning
(April 17th)
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David Kanter |
Playground play can support students' content learning while harnessing the inherent power of play to bolster behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. A study of two guided play games found that theyimproved students' science content learning as well as all three types of engagement, and at levels beyond comparable free play. David Kanter will also provide an overview of the New York Hall of Science's new SciPlay R&D Center that he directs. Wed, April 17, 5:00-7:00 pm, NAC 4/220B
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Betsy Rorschach Reads from her New Novel
Professor Betsy Rorschach has just had her middle-grade fantasy novel entitled Kenning Magic (Saguaro Books) published under her penname, Lizzie Ross. Betsy will read selections from Kenning Magic, answer questions about writing for young adults, and sign copies, some of which will be available for purchase at the session. Copies may also be purchased at Amazon.com at this address: http://tinyurl.com/bnpfsp8 or at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/sample/read/9781482344288. All are welcome to attend the event on Tuesday, April 16 from 7:00 to 8:15.pm in NAC 4/220B.
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Film Debut: "Living Undocumented: High School, College & Beyond"
(April 30th)
Professor Tatyana Kleyn has directed a short documentary film that explores the lives of diverse undocumented immigrant youth to illustrate the realities, challenges and opportunities they face through high school, college, and beyond. The film will be premiered at The City College of New York, followed by a panel discussion featuring the film's participants and moderated by City College President Lisa S. Coico. Don't miss the debut of this film on Tuesday, April 30th from 5:30-7:30pm in Aaron Davis Hall (Theater B). The event is free and open to all.
Please RSVP at:
http://csauth.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/education/livingundocumentedsp13.cfm
For inquiries email: livingundocumented@gmail.com
Following the debut the film will be made available to everyone on-line at livingundocumented.com. The DOE's Office of English Language Learners will also post the film, and the accompanying lesson plan and resource guide to their web site.
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Education Alumni's Annual Awards
Ceremony & Reception
(Thursday, May 2nd at the National Arts Club
from 6:00 to 8:30 pm
)
The Education Alumni Annual Awards Ceremony and Reception will take place on Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 6pm at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South (E. 20th Street), Manhattan. All alumni are invited. There will be an Open Bar & Sumptuous Hors D'Oeuvres beginning at 6:00 P.M. with the program at 7:30 p.m. The cost is $65 per person
Among the honorees are Dr. Marcia Lyles (receiving the Distinguished Partner in Education Award). Currently, Dr. Lyles is the Superintendent of Jersey City Schools. Formerly, she was the Superintendent of Delaware's Christina School District, and the Former Deputy Chancellor of the NYC School System. Dr. Betty A. Rosa '74 will be receiving the Distinguished Educator Award. She is Regent for the Twelfth Judicial District, Bronx County, Founder of MS 101, and President of educational consulting firm BDJ & J Associates LLC. Other teacher and administrator award winners will be announced at the event.
For further information, tickets and/or Journal Ads ($25 and up) Contact Ms. Olga Mikhlina (omikhlina@ccnyalumni.org; 212-650-5343) or Dr. Bruce M. Billig (bbillig@ccny.cuny.edu)
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Educational Theatre Program
Theatre & Art Education for the Community
Family Arts Day
(April 27th)
Family Arts Day - SAVE THE DATE! This year it will be on Saturday April 27th from 10-1pm at Aaron Davis Hall. This year's event will include live performances, story-telling, theatre games, mask making, face-painting, sing-a-longs, raffle prizes and so much more! Free fun for the entire family! For updated information on Family Arts Day please check out our website: http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/education/educationaltheatre/index.cfm
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News & Notes
Student News & Notes
The CCNY Dream Team Pushes for Change - On and Off Campus
By Isabel Mendoza, Dream Team Member
The CCNY Dream Team is an official club at City College. The goal of the team is to provide a safe space for undocumented students-also known as DREAMERS- and their supporters. We discuss college life and issues affecting our communities, as well as advocate for fair immigration policies. We have a couple of events planned for this semester. We will be meeting with President Lisa Coico to identify ways to assist different administrative offices around campus to help undocumented students with scholarships, IDs, and ensuring they pay in-state tuition. A bigger event is also being planned for the end of the year to celebrate our first year as an official club. We plan to work with other campus organizations and clubs to inform students about differences between The Dream Act and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and bring in professionals from the immigration field to talk about changes in legislation. Additional activities are been finalized. Everyone is welcome to join our club, regardless of immigration status. We are all about making CCNY a better campus. If you would like more information come to our meetings every Thursday in NAC 3/222 or email us at ccnydreamteam@gmail.com. Be sure to follow us on Facebook under CCNY Dream Team.
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Ms. Michellene Barrett, a student in the School of Education founded and edits the CCNY Magazine Club. She also wrote and published a book entitled Englisha and David's Adventurous Vacation. In December Ms. Barrett was invited to discuss her journey to becoming a published author by the Teachers of Tomorrow club.
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City College Students Excel at Model UN
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Simone Gordon in foreground |
Each year the National Model UN Conference hosts approximately 200 universities from around the world, where each school represents a member state of the United Nations or an international non-government organization. Students compete through debate, resolution writing, and speeches, in an effort to propose solutions to some of the world's pressing issues.
Schools who best represent their assigned countries are awarded recognition
above their peers by the NCCA. The City College of New York has a tradition
of receiving awards every year they compete. We congratulate Ms. Simone Gordon (an undergraduate in Childhood Education) for being selected to represent City College at the Conference this year and the rest of the City College team which was recognized as a "Distinguished Delegation" at the event.
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Faculty News & Notes
Professor Susan Semel announced the fourth edition of her book Exploring Education: An Introduction to the Foundations of Education, by Alan R. Sadovnik, Peter Cookson, Jr., and Susan Semel, just published by Routledge. This much-anticipated updated edition of Exploring Education offers an alternative to traditional foundations texts by combining a point-of-view analysis with primary source readings. "At a time when foundations of education are marginalized in many teacher education programs and teacher education reform pushes scripted approaches to curriculum and instruction, Exploring Education helps teachers to think critically about the "what" and "why" behind the most pressing issues in contemporary education".
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Professor Megan Blumenreich |
Professor Megan Blumenreich and Bethany Rogers had Reframing the Conversation: Insights from the Oral Histories of Three 1990 TFA Participants published in Teachers College Record, 2/5/2013, http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=16976. Their research examines the professional choices and trajectories of Teach for America participants over a twenty-year period, attending especially to individuals' perceptions of their urban teaching experiences, their beliefs, and their reasons for staying in or leaving the urban classroom, with the aim of better understanding the experiences of such teachers and the implications for staffing urban schools.
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Professor Hazel Carter has just had her new book published. It is entitled Creating Effective Partnerships for School Improvement. The book places the school within the community which is composed of a number of key players, including school leaders, classroom teachers, private foundations, higher education institutions, business and community based organizations, and government agencies. This book encourages leaders to embrace this broader community of stakeholders and to focus on the often overlooked and underutilized college and university partnerships. Keep Reading
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Professor Hope Hartman Retires
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Professor Hope Hartman |
Professor Hope Hartman, a valued scholar, educator, colleague and friend retired at the end of the fall semester, 2012. Hope received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Ohio State University in 1969 and her doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from Rutgers in 1980. After receiving her doctorate she had a number of educational research positions as well as consultancies to school districts, state education departments and colleges.
Dr. Hartman first came to CCNY in 1986 as Director of Tutor Training, and later became Director of the CCNY Tutoring and Cooperative Learning Program, (also known as the Diamond Learning Program). In 1989 she began her work at City College as an Associate Professor in the School of Education's Department of Social and Psychological Foundations. The courses she taught at the undergraduate and/or Master's level included: Human Learning & Instruction, Child and Adolescent Learning, Inquiry into Learning, and the Psychology of Learning and Teaching. Her special talents were recognized by the CUNY graduate faculty where she taught courses in both Instructional Technology and Cognitive Development & Learning to Doctoral students. During that time fiscal crises reduced the size of the School of Education and several consolidations and reorganizations later resulted in her moving to the Secondary Education department in 1993 and subsequently to the Department of Leadership & Special Education in 2002.
Professor Hartman authored, co-authored or edited five books including, more recently, A Guide to Reflective Practice for New and Experienced Teachers. 2009 and Tips for the Science: Research-Based Strategies to Help Students Learn, 2001. Finally, she served as an editor of Instructional Science: International Journal of Learning and Cognition for over a dozen years. In addition, she wrote 11 chapters, 17 journal articles, and received more than ten grants that brought more than a million and a half dollars in support. She also presented at innumerable meetings and conferences. During her career, Professor Hartman did curriculum and faculty development with faculty members in biology, mathematics, engineering and nursing. She also served as Director of the College's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning from 2006-2008.
In all of her work Professor Hartman was deeply concerned with how educational psychology can enhance teaching and learning. Her special interests and areas of emphasis included: critical thinking, cognition, metacognitive processes, problem solving, cooperative learning, reciprocal teaching, and tutoring. She developed expertise in technology and its applications to classroom teaching and educational practice. Two of those applications in which she had a special interest were the Hylighter Social Annotation System and WebQuests. Students in her classes were fortunate to be exposed to many of these areas and how to apply this material to their own teaching.
Finally, she was repeatedly elected as a member of the PSC Union Executive Committee, a position that was one of her favorite activities; where she experienced making an impact behind the scenes, which she liked best. To read a question and answer exchange between the editor of CONNECTED and Professor Hartman click here.
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Professor Laura Gellert will be making a presentation with three other faculty
members from NYC colleges at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
(NCTM) presession this April in Denver. The title of the presentation is "There's an
App for That," But How Good is it? Participants will learn to assess the value of
math apps' in developing student math proficiency. Our group evaluated more
than 30 apps and participants will be able to explore two math game apps and use
the evaluation system to evaluate the app and offer feedback on the evaluation
system. http://www.nctm.org/meetings/
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Past Events
On March 13th Professors Beverly Falk and Megan Blumenreich introduced the content of their recent book, Teaching Matters: Stories from inside City Schools (New Press, 2012), which features the work of graduates of City College's School of Education. A panel of six alumni whose work is described in the book talked about the inquiries into their practice that they conducted during the capstone research course of their graduate education programs.
The teachers gave firsthand accounts of the challenges and dilemmas of teaching in city schools and offered insights to how to address some of the pressing issues faced by all educators today. The topics of the alumni inquiries ranged from the work of Travis Sloane, a science cluster teacher, who demonstrated how he developed learning guides to help his struggling learners get the most out of the science curriculum-- to the work of Rory Scott, a pre-school director, who worked to create a school community that supported and welcomed the immigrant African families it served. These alumni also shared how the inquiries they conducted while at CCNY continue to influence their teaching.
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University of South Carolina Professor Gloria Swindler-Boutte Discussed Culturally Responsive Teaching
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Professor Gloria Swindler-Boutte |
On Thursday, February 28th, about 170 teacher candidates, SOE alumni and faculty packed NAC 4/220B and C for a presentation on culturally-responsive teaching from Professor Gloria Swindler-Boutte of the University of South Carolina. The interactive session included a PowerPoint featuring images of culturally-responsive curricula from several classes - early childhood, the middle elementary grades, high school science and high school mathematics. Some of the important ideas discussed included:
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the structural and institutional levels of discrimination/oppression in our society as well as identity and individual levels.
- the damage done by these forms of discrimination is great - it is part of the code of ethics for educators who must work to combat them.
- how culturally responsive teachers utilize the knowledge base about inequities and oppression and about the role of culture in the learning process.
- how culturally responsive teachers view culture as an asset not a liability; they respect the home languages and cultures of their students and incorporate these into the curriculum
- how culturally responsive teachers offer children opportunities to see themselves in the images and texts they use for their learning; they integrate global and multiple perspectives into the curriculum
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Bortner Distinguished Lecture Series on Urban Education
Dealt with New Directions in Parent & Community Involvement
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Professor Joyce L. Epstein |
Professor Joyce L. Epstein was the featured speaker at the Doyle and Alma Bortner Distinguished Speaker Series in Urban Education on Monday, March 4th. The title of her talk was "New Directions in Developing Programs of Family and Community Involvement for Student Success." As in previous years, this event was well attended by students, faculty, and guests from the community. It was broadcasted live on the web to two education classes from York College, and students from these classes were able to ask questions to our speaker. The archive has been viewed by nineteen people so far. To view the archived program please go to http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=ccny. If you have a problem contact Kenlyn Miller at kmiller@ccny.cuny.edu. Congratulations to the members of the Organizing Committee (Edwin M. Lamboy, Denise McLurkin, Susan Semel, Gay Wilgus, Yael Wyner and Chris Yawn) and special thanks to Dean Mary E. Driscoll, Peter Baptiste and Kenlyn Miller for their support.
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The Ed Theatre Program has been busy!
This February we had an exciting discussion with Theatre Practitioner Cecily O'Neill who visited Professor Jennifer Katona's Research Class. She inspired students to think about how to use Process Drama in the classroom and addressed the challenges and successful outcomes.
Family Arts Saturday started in February and continued for three successful weeks with students who are registered for EDCE 4400C Integrating Theatre and Related Arts taught by Sobha Kavanakudiyil. Participants included 2-5 year olds and their families using theatre games, music and movement and puppets.
This March Border Crossers visited Professor Jennifer Katona's Curriculum Class on March 7th to discuss how to facilitate conversations on race and culture in the elementary classroom through dramatic activities. The workshop was also attended by Professor Fraga's class from the Bilingual/TESOL program. The workshop challenged candidates to think about how society defines race and racism and its individual, institutional and cultural implications.
March is Theatre In Our Schools month. The TIOS Conference, hosted by the local chapter of the American Alliance of Theatre Educators, took place on Monday, March 4th at the American Airlines Theatre. Sobha Kavanakudiyil moderated the Plenary Panel on Differentiation and Universal Design for Theatre Educators. The mini-conference was co-chaired by program alumna Lisa Mitchell.
The Graduate Program in Educational Theatre is proud to announce that this March - The New York City Arts in Education Roundtable held its annual Face to Face Conference at The City College of New York. Graduate Candidates Jono Waldman, Sarah Abrams and Sobha Kavanakudiyil presented Civic Engagement and the Arts and alumna Lisa Mitchell presented A Collaborative Rehearsal: Team-Teaching Musical Theatre.
This past March Graduate Candidates enrolled in EDCE 4400C Integrating Theatre and Related Arts began an Arts Integration Residency with four 2nd grade classes at PS 161. In addition to using theatre and related art form skills graduate candidates will collaborate with classroom teachers to create experiences with puppetry, storytelling, masks, pantomime, improvisation, ensemble building activities, and music and movement.
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Websites of Interest

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More than fifty website resources for teachers were described over the past four years in CONNECTED. Here are some of the best with brief annotations. Nearly all are free. Many provide resources across the curriculum and grade levels. Several are portals that will lead you to even more resources best suited to your learning and teaching needs. Bookmark these sites or print the list for later use.
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American Graduate
http://edu.americangraduate.org/ This site highlights "the best of public media's interactive resources and educational projects for use with middle school and high school students" It includes "multimedia productions created by youth and professional development videos for educators. The 800+ resources featured here are designed to bring educational content to life in engaging and innovative ways, and include games, activities, quizzes, quests, and other interactive experiences". The project is a multi-year public media initiative, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
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Association for Library Service to Children,
http://www.educationworld.com/awards/2009/r0209-02.shtml offers an online directory of hundreds of links to commendable Web sites for children. The sites have been evaluated by a committee of librarians and each must meet strict criteria before it can be included on the site. Pre k-8.
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Academic Earth
http://academicearth.org/ offers video lectures from elite universities, and allows viewers to grade the professors. Academic Earth also offers a "Playlists" feature based around themes such as "Laws of Nature," "Wars Throughout History," and "You Are What You Eat."
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Curriki
http://www.curriki.com/ an online community for creating and sharing curricula and best teaching practices.
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Digital Storytelling
www.storycenter.org/stories/ Go to this site to get a sense of the power of a digital story. To learn more about educational applications, go to the Digital Storytelling web site at the University at Houston http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/.
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Documents Teach
http://docsteach.org/ Use easily accessed primary sources, video, charts, maps and data in your classroom. Those with "SmartBoards" or similar equipment can easily show many of these in class or allow students watch them at home.
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Edutopia is a really interesting website. (www.edutopia.org). Take a look at this article on Project Based Learning (PBL) with videos that will give you lots of ideas about doing all sorts of projects in your classrooms at http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-student-motivation.
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Education Journals http://dir.yahoo.com/education/journals/ links you with twenty seven online education journals. If you search "online education journals" you will find many more; for example the following find for refereed journals- http://marauder.millersville.edu/~curricul/Refereed.htm
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Federal Resources for Educational Excellence portal of resources at www.free.ed.gov
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Filamentality http://www.filamentality.com/wired/fil/ gives you templates to easily make "hotlists" of web resources that you can store online at their site and gain access to anytime/ anyplace. It also allows you to see and use what many other teachers have already collected when searching for online resources.
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Google for Educators www.google.com/educators
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Kathy Shrock Guide http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/ Kathy Schrock was one of the earliest educators to create a gigantic educational portal which she continues to add to and refine. So good, it was taken over by Discovery Education. Set aside some time to review this guide so that you will be adept at finding and using the countless resources that make up the site. Resources are also there for administrators, parents and students.
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Learning Science http://learningscience.org/index.htm a "free and open learning community for sharing newer and emerging tools for teaching science" has a lot of free, interesting resources for science teachers.
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Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/teachers/ Resources in the collection of the Library of Congress. This site Includes classroom materials created by teachers for teachers.
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MIT http://k12videos.mit.edu/ MIT is encouraging its students to produce short videos teaching basic concepts in science and engineering to K-12 students. The videos will be accessible through the above website and a YouTube channel. A subset of the videos will also be available on Khan Academy, a popular not-for-profit educational site founded by an MIT alumnus. "
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NASA http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html - resources for teachers . A new room awaits kids on the NASA Kids' Club website: The Clubhouse, accessible from the mission control console on the NASA Kids' Club page (click on the center image of the space station), includes games and interactive features designed for K-4 students at: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2012/12/05/nasa-education-launches-new-clubhouse-for-k-4-students/
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The National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University breaks down the different risk factors faced by children in each state. Go to the site and find out the per cent of children with different risk factors in New York State. http://www.nccp.org/tools/risk/
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NYSED http://www.oce.nysed.gov/etvpb/teachers.htm - See this list of educational video resources listed by the New York State Education Department.
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Online Dictionary and More. http://memidex.com Not only does this free tool provide you with definitions from a variety of dictionaries, it also provides a Thesaurus and it gives you the pronunciations of each word and often multiple pronunciations.
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Power Media Plus www.powermediaplus.com Resouces: 3,300 videos; 23,000 core concept clips; 6,000 audio files, including speeches, audio books, and music; 25,000 educational photos, clip art images, and illustrations; and 5,000 print resources, as well as a databank of 15,000 quiz questions and 1,000 pre-made quizzes.
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PowerPoint: How not to use http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BP2HlNmRJ4.
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Regents Review The Regents Review 2.0 collection designed by New York State teachers helps students prepare for the Regents Examinations. The collection of 60 videos features teacher-guided test preparation in the following content areas: chemistry, earth science, living environment, physics, integrated algebra, global history and geography, U.S. history and government and foreign languages.
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Search Engines Galore: http://www.searchengineguide.com/pages/Education/
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Share My Lesson offers a new online portal to vast resources created by teachers/for teachers. Launched this year by the AFT. The new digital platform allows educators to collaborate and share teaching resources and innovative ideas straight from the classroom, each emphasizing Common Core State Standards. Lessons are peer reviewed. To see first the 9 minute video explaining what this resource is, click here. Then go to http://sharemylesson.com , sign up and explore the site.
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Skype in the Classroom http://education.skype.com/ 'Meet new people, discover new cultures and connect with classes from around the world without leaving the classroom". A world of project-based activities is available to you and your students with Skype. Bring experts to your classrooms, link your kids with others children around the world, and find teachers with whom to do collaborative projects. "Ni hao!"
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The Teaching Channel www.teachingchannel.org Another amazing site that describes itself as "a video showcase on the Internet and TV of inspiring and effective teaching practices in America's schools". This is a wonderful way to watch specific teaching practices at home and then discuss them the next day with peers or classmates. The teaching channel also gives you a workspace where you can save the videos you want, a free lesson planner and a place to store your notes. More than twenty three thousand teachers are logged on to this site and it's free to join and use their resources. Beginning teachers, experienced teachers and teacher educators can find much of value at this site.
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TED TALKS of Ideas Worth Sharing consists of accomplished and often brilliant people from varied fields describing "ideas worth sharing". A fascinating example, McArthur Genius Award winner Professor Bonnie Bassler shared her work on how bacteria communicate with one another. Her presentation is at http://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html is clear, comprehensible and under 20 minutes. Her discovery "shows how bacteria use chemical powwows to stage attacks, evade immune systems and forge slimy defenses called biofilms". Another example is Salman Khan talking about his Academy, used by students and educators world-wide http://www.ted.com/speakers/salman_kahn.html.
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TEDEd http://ed.ted.com started developing and identifying videos that would support "lessons worth sharing" that could be used by students and teachers. They claim to have "carefully curated educational videos which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TEDEd platform". To capture and amplify the voices of the world's greatest educators TEDEd pairs extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of exceptional educational videos. Go to the above site and take the video tour that explains how you can us the site with your teaching.
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Teachers Domain www.teachersdomain.org is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You'll find thousands of media resources, support materials, tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities.
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TeAchnology http://www.teach-nology.com provides free and easy to use resources for teachers dedicated to improving the education of today's generation of students. They feature thousands of lesson plans, printable worksheets, teaching tips, and other teacher resources k-12.
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Teacher Tube www.teachertube.com to use other teachers' videos or to upload your own.
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Thinkfinity http://www.thinkfinity.org/ more resources.
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THIRTEEN offers many resources and services in support of its broadcasts, and they want you to stay informed. Sign up to receive FREE email alerts about ongoing projects including the Ed Dept Bulletin, the Celebration of Teaching and Learning, and Kids Thirteen News & Events at http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/subscribe/
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USDOE Site http://www.ed.gov/teaching - the United States Department of Education (USDOE) site is a wonderful portal with all kinds of links to information and resources for teachers. Indispensible and should be bookmarked in your browser for regular use. Look also at www.ed.gov for a wide array of information on education.
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Vital Thirteen http://vital.thirteen.org/vital2td.html, provides New York teachers 5,000 free, standards-based, preK-12 media resources, support materials, and self-paced lessons, including: classroom-ready content for ELA, math, science, and social studies, video resources designed to promote adolescent literacy, Regents-aligned content in Global History and Geography, U.S. History, Living Environment, Earth Science, Physics and Chemistry, tools that let you save and organize resources to share with students and colleagues, teacher professional development and learning communities . http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/ Channel 13's Great Performances website, is also worthy of a look. Show your class the full version of Rupert Goold's version of Macbeth and the teacher's guide at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/macbeth/educators-guide/1023/
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What Works in Education Clearinghouse. http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/advancedss.aspx Find out what works in Education using this site
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Wordle Make art from words at www.wordle.net/create and play.
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You Tube www.youtube.com and www.youtube.com/education Need to fix a leaky faucet or to insert a Google calendar on your website, or most anything else? Go to YouTube and get video help. Upload your own videos as well. Nearly 80,000 separate videos on "education resources". Search for specific areas you want resources for (ESL, Special Ed etc). There are 523 videos on how to search with Google. Here's one of the ones the search turned up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk6vZiGiaiQ. Just an example of the resources to expand our use of the Web. YouTube also has created a page for teachers, YouTube.com/Teachers, to help teachers learn to use the site as a powerful educational tool. Although there are lots of educational videos on YouTube, there are also many inappropriate videos for students; the reason many schools block access to YouTube from their networks. According to eSchool News this is why YouTube created a special section for schools, filled with age-appropriate educational content. YouTube for Schools at http://www.youtube.com/schools "gives users access to the hundreds of thousands of educational videos, includes short lessons from top teachers around the world, full courses from the world's best universities, professional development from fellow educators, and inspiring videos from thought leaders".
"School teachers and administrators can log in and watch any video, but students cannot log in and can only watch YouTube EDU videos and videos their school has added. All comments and related videos are disabled, and search is limited to YouTube EDU videos". "Educators also can customize the content that is available from the site. Though all schools receive access to all of the content on YouTube EDU, teachers and administrators can log in to YouTube.com and create playlists of videos that will be available at their school".
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Three Dimensional Printing: You have to see this site to believe it! See a four minute demonstration of a 3D printer that prints a working wrench! Need a tool in space? Machine will print it for you. Show this to your students. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-aWFYT_SU&feature=related
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Lastly, we googled "Best Web Resources for Teachers" and Wow! There were lots of opinions about the best sites and lots of lists. Below are some of the first that came up. Some are sites with specific resources and others are portals that will take you out to tons of other resource sites. Try also Googling Best Web Resources in Math, Science, etc. Use Filamentality (earlier in this list) to create a hotlist with some of these sites and other sites you use or bookmark them.
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Brief Articles of Interest
This section provides links to articles of general interest and importance in education. Keeping in mind how busy our readers are, most of the articles selected are from one to three pages.
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Debbie Meier amazed many of us when she led Central Park East Secondary School. She and others did it again with the creation of the Mission Hill School in Boston. See firsthand what goes into creating a powerful learning environment for children (and adults). We meet the school's teachers, families and children as they experience the highs and lows of a year of self-discovery, exploration, and frustration. See Chapter 1: Why We're Here http://www.missionhillschool.org/a-year-at-mission-hill/. See also A Year at Mission Hills http://www.ayearatmissionhill.com/index.php, the three videos that are completed and materials from other good schools. Bookmark this site to see the remaining videos as they are produced and contributions from other good schools. Also, read this related blog post at Education Week http://tinyurl.com/ctlk99n by Kim Farris-Berg.
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Read about how 5th and 6th graders in New York City public schools are learning ballroom dancing. See the reasons why in this Education Week story at http://tinyurl.com/cbfvyba. See also the video at www.dancingclassrooms.com.
Contact Pierre Dulaine, go out and rent the film Mad Hot Ballroom and get your class involved!
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Read how a "flipped classroom" flipped a student's perspective in this eSchool News story at http://tinyurl.com/cahqduf
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In an Education Week Leadership 360 article by Jill Bekowitcz and Anne Myers entitled Are We Overproducing Teachers? Stop It! the authors argue that Schools of Education are not producing too many teachers but they need to produce different kinds of teachers. See it at http://tinyurl.com/agywltu
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On the issue of grades, prizes and awards, here is Deborah Meier responding to Alfie Kohn. I am glad to see that she is as muddled about all of this as the rest of us. See http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2013/02/dear_alfie_i_folow_your.html
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This Teaching Channel video presents four classrooms at four grade levels demonstrating effective lessons in the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) http://tinyurl.com/a4ezuuy. See the Teaching Channel schedule to view other programs in the comfort of your living room at http://www.teachingchannel.org/tv-schedule.
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See the five recipients of the 2012 Teaching Tolerance: Culturally Responsive Teaching Award who were honored at a special gathering in Washington. The award, created and administered by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project, recognizes educators who have demonstrated excellence in teaching students from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. http://www.edweek.org/tm/events/teaching-tolerance/resources_2013.html?cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS2&intc=thed. Watch as Lisa Delpit , author of Other People's Children presents the keynote address at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1yl0MFYzXc
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Watch Ken Robinson's animated Ted talk about how school kills creativity at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1yl0MFYzXc.
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Watch Sarah Brown Wesling (National Teacher of the Year) mess up a high school English lesson. Watch how she handles it and what she does at http://www.edweek.org/tm/section/teaching-channel/index.html?cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS1
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The consensus among researchers and educators has been that students must close vocabulary gaps to succeed academically and deal with rigorous content. A new study confirms this and discusses what can be done to promote vocabulary development in the early years. See: http://tinyurl.com/av3chfj
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For those currently teaching- explore a new tool created by The Teaching Channel for schools and groups of teachers within schools to find and share resources and to discuss issues related to teaching. Maybe start this with teachers in your school. http://tinyurl.com/bb3vsfo
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Engaged in efforts to improve your school? Here are 15 school leaders to learn from and the steps they took and changes they made that did just that http://tinyurl.com/bzg3qna
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A small scale study, supported by the Gates Foundation, comparing ways to support teacher development was reported in eSchool News. One group of teachers is getting eight rounds of one-on-one coaching from experts at Cambridge Educational Services in Des Plaines, Ill. The coaching is based on video samples of their teaching. The second have a password to an online learning community, giving them 24-7 freedom to talk about classroom management, or teaching fractions—anything that comes up, really—with other site members. They want to see which leads to better pupil achievement. Read more at http://tinyurl.com/amdfu98.
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A wonderful Ted talk by a young MIT doctoral student who is teaching high school. "Tyler DeWitt a high school science teacher was ecstatic about a lesson plan on bacteria (how cool!) -- and devastated when his students hated it. The problem was the textbook: it was impossible to understand. He delivers a rousing call for science teachers to ditch the jargon and extreme precision, and instead make science sing through stories and demonstrations". http://tinyurl.com/bg783wu. See also these 11 TED talks on reimagining school http://www.ted.com/playlists/24/re_imagining_school.html and the TED Ed site devoted to educational issues at http://ed.ted.com
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The next two videos are mostly for fun. Watch this Ted talk on body language, Professor Amy Cuddy's research on body language reveals that we can change other people's perceptions — and even our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions. http://tinyurl.com/altlo4e.
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Remember Father Guido Sarducci, who played the wise priest on Saturday Night Live? In this video Father Sarducci's dicusses his idea for a five minute university at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4
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This Teaching Channel video demonstrates the teaching of geometry to 6thgraders using a real world problem.
http://www.edweek.org/tm/section/teaching-channel/index.html?cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS2
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Once again a look at "flipped instruction" and no instruction with David Ginsburg. Read his article in Education Week and watch the short video at http://tinyurl.com/arqpdrr
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Read this book review by Rebecca Tarlau, Freire in Theory and practice: An essay review of Paolo Freire: The Man from Recife by James D Kirylo. It's a good way to introduce and provide an overview of Paolo Freire http://edrev.info/reviews/rev1154.pdf. Then buy and read The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
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Why are our schools in trouble? Perhaps this video can help explain some of it. It is a visual presentation of the distribution of wealth in America. http://tinyurl.com/bc77cqs
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Ten interesting technology uses you need to be aware of from e-School News at http://tinyurl.com/d9adtch
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Education Week reports on some of the results of the 29th annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. Based on telephone interviews with 1,000 K-12 public school teachers and 500 principals, it tells a story of enduring budget problems in schools and declining morale among both teachers and school leaders". The picture painted is of teachers and school leaders experiencing significant stress and decreasing job satisfaction. See the full study at https://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/foundation/MetLife-Teacher-Survey-2012.pdf
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IN MEMORIUM
Dean Doyle M. Bortner
1915-2012
We recently learned of the passing of Doyle M. Bortner who served as the Dean of the School of Education in the 1960s and through the 1970s. Much admired as the leader of the City College School of Education, Dean Bortner made a strong point of reaching out to the public schools in the community and involving the School of Education in City College's urban mission. Five years ago, while in retirement, he donated a generous gift to the School of Education that has brought and will continue to bring distinguish educators to City College as part of an Annual Speakers Series in Urban Education. Tributes and reflections from some Professors who knew him follow below.
I was saddened to hear of Doyle Bortner's passing. I remember him as a man who was always fair in his decisions. Whether one agreed or disagreed with his judgments, it was always clear that they were reached by considering the available alternatives without animosity to anyone on the other side of any of the issues involved. He was not a confrontational person and in a School with more than its share of confrontational people it was a relief to have this calm, gentle, kind, and wise person as a leader. I cherish his memory.
Sigmund Tobias
My strongest memory of Doyle is of his attentiveness. Over the years, whenever I brought an issue to him, I received an immediate response and I felt he had no other item on his agenda than my concern. I guess this is one of the strongest endorsements of leadership that one can give. When I was a Program Head and Department Chair, I modeled my responses on Doyle's behavior. There were times when I felt overburdened and wanted to delay my response, but I always thought about Doyle's attentiveness and when issues came to me, I tried to
be there 100%. I'm not saying I was as effective as Doyle, but he was my hero.
Julie Rosen
Doyle Bortner was dean when I was hired to join the faculty in the fall of 1970. He was always very supportive, very soft-spoken and always had the best interest of the faculty as his first priority. He led faculty through some difficult times at City College… I only have fond memories of this genuine gentleman. When I contacted him several years ago during my deanship years, he very graciously offered to donate $25,000 to the School of Education to support a lecture series - once again showing a largess that was typical of his personality. He enjoyed a long relationship with his beloved wife, Alba, and during the years after she died spent happy years and a retirement community. I, along with some of my colleagues, visited him and probably enjoyed the visit as much as he did. I frequently phoned him and enjoyed reminiscing about the past about which he had an outstanding memory and very candid assessments of his many years at City College. In short, Doyle Bortner is a person I shall never forget!
Al Posamentier
Two words that immediately come to mind that best describe Doyle Bortner for me are "gracious" and" thoughtful". I would then add that "Doyle was a true gentleman and scholar", in the best and most balanced meaning of the classical definition of this phrase.
For me, especially in that era of relaxed dress and behavior in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s at The City College when Doyle served as my Dean, in both his personal demeanor and appearance he presented a picture of good taste, style and manner that set a very high standard in my mind forever of how I expect a Dean to appear. He was someone I was always proud to introduce as my "Dean".
Doyle also had a surprising sense of humor. I still recycle some of his humorous and brief comments at college and university events. Two in particular come to mind, both of which he used at School of education meetings at which he presided monthly. The first was: "Sometimes I think I am losing control of my faculties!" The second was: I am not always sure which my faculty are retired and which are still working!"
I am sure I will always miss Doyle. May he rest in peace.
Jim Shields
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CONNECTED Committee: Bruce Billig, Doris Grasserbauer, Leonard Lewis, Stacia Pusey, and Norman Shapiro, editor.
Layout and graphics by Kurt Brown.
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