The Canucks Hit Vancouver Streets
Raise-a-Reader Day and the Canucks Family Education Centre team up to battle low literacy levels in Vancouver.
Since its national inception three years ago, Raise-a-Reader has raised more than $2.8 million, $1.6 million of which was raised in Vancouver, in support of literacy programs in Canada. Each fall, thirteen cities nation wide gather high profile community members-- such as members of the Vancouver Canucks-and volunteers together to "hawk" CanWest newspapers in exchange for donations. The $740,000 raised in BC in 2004 due to newspaper sales, corporate sponsorship and provincial government donations provided financial assistance and resources to family literacy programs and libraries in BC, such as the Canucks Family Education Centre located on Vancouver's eastside.
Although Canada's literacy levels lead internationally, consistently outranking the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, Literacy BC reports that more than forty percent of working age people in BC have trouble with the everyday demands of reading, writing and using numbers. The issue affecting society, Literacy BC warns, is that people who struggle with these basic skills are less likely to gain and keep employment, earn a high income, participate fully in society, and be involved in their children's education. Family literacy programs emphasize that literacy is the universal human right to gain knowledge and express thought, and by removing barriers to literacy, strong communities can be built.
By responding to the needs of the community, Vancouver is paving the path to increased national literacy levels. Raise-a-Reader is an initiative that was started in Vancouver in 1997 by Vancouver Canucks Community Partnerships Director, Debbie Butt. She started this venture with Vancouver Sun publisher, Dennis Skulsky during her time working with the Vancouver Grizzlies. Raise-a-Reader became a national initiative in 2001 due to its success at raising awareness about and funds for family literacy. In 2002, the Canucks Family Education Centre-- a partnership between Literacy BC, Britannia Community Services Centre, and the Canucks for Kids Fund-was formed. The Canucks for Kids Fund, as one of the primary beneficiaries of Raise-a-Reader, used the money raised to help open the Canucks Family Education Centre, donating $150,000 over three years.
The Canucks Family Education Centre is located in east Vancouver, a community that suffers from high levels of poverty and substance abuse. The mantra of this unique centre that combines the efforts of educators, families and social agencies, is to positively impact low literacy levels on Vancouver's Eastside. It plans on identifying and correcting gaps in existing literacy programs, such as implementing a "No Excuse" learning environment for parents and children. The Centre believes that the family is a learning unit, which is why it mediates intergenerational opportunities for learning: it provides hot lunches and daycare so that parents can take advantage of an environment that allows them to read with, and oftentimes learn to read with, their children.
By promoting reading and learning as valued family activities, parents can begin to support their children's literacy development. Literacy BC emphasizes that parents need to be involved in their children's education, including reading to them at an early age. By exposing children to a literary environment, parents can place their children at a great educational advantage. Literacy BC statistics show that children who are read to at a young age may have as much as several thousand hours of one-on-one pre-reading experience under their belts upon entering grade one, which often contrasts with children who have never opened a book. Without crucial parental support, the cycle of under-education continues from generation to generation. With support from family literacy programs-- like those supported by Raise-a-Reader and those found in the Canucks Family Education Centre-- children who might otherwise have been educationally and developmentally behind their peers enter school on par. Furthermore, by providing an environment where parents and children can learn to read together, it is possible to increase overall literacy levels in Canada.
Due to the success of the programs offered at the Canucks Family Education Centre, it is expanding to other schools in the east Vancouver area, including Grandview, Strathcona, Garibaldi and several others. As the necessity of literacy increases (ABC Canada estimates that about 45 percent of new jobs created this decade will require sixteen years of education), programs that aim to reverse low literacy levels in target communities, such as east Vancouver, become more and more beneficial. Please support Raise-a-Reader Day in Vancouver by purchasing a Vancouver Sun Newspaper on Thursday, September 29, 2005.


English, Literacy and Learning (EDUP1002)
UNIT OF STUDY
This unit of study begins the exploration of children's language and literacy learning in the context of the English key learning area. The unit provides an introduction to exploring K-2 literacy development and teaching practices. Students will become familiar with the fundamental components of reading and writing, children's literature, and multimodal texts, supported through varied learning activities and observation of teachers and children through classroom visits.
Our courses that offer this unit of study
Further unit of study information
1x1-hr lecture/wk for 12wks, 1x2-hr tutorial/wk for 12wks, online learning experiences
20min seminar presentation (20%) and 1800-2000wd essay (35%) and 2600wd essay/resource guide (45%)
Faculty/department permission required?
Study this unit outside a degree
If you wish to undertake one or more units of study (subjects) for your own interest but not towards a degree, you may enrol in single units as a non-award student.
If you are from another Australian tertiary institution you may be permitted to underake cross-institutional study in one or more units of study at the University of Sydney.


Primary School in Japan
Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education
By Peter Cave
Routledge – 2008 – 248 pages
The balance between individual independence and social interdependence is a perennial debate in Japan. A series of educational reforms since 1990, including the implementation of a new curriculum in 2002, has been a source of fierce controversy. This book, based on an extended, detailed study of two primary schools in the Kinki district of Japan, discusses these debates, shows how reforms have been implemented at the school level, and explores how the balance between individuality and social interdependence is managed in practice. It discusses these complex issues in relation to personal identity within the class and within the school, in relation to gender issues, and in relation to the teaching of specific subjects, including language, literature and mathematics. The book concludes that, although recent reforms have tended to stress individuality and independence, teachers in primary schools continue to balance the encouragement of individuality and self-direction with the development of interdependence and empathy.
Introduction: Self, Society and Education in Japan 1. Education and Individuality in Japan 2. Groups and Individuals at Primary School 3. Stories of the Self 4. Mathematical Relationships 5. Learning Gender 6. Ceremonial Creations 7. The Next Stage – 2002 and All That. Conclusion
Peter Cave is a lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester, and was formerly lecturer in the Department of Japanese Studies at the University of Hong Kong. His main research interest is Japanese education in comparative context.


Originally posted on ABC & 123, 4/05/10 & on teachmama.com on 5/10/10. Sharing again because. . . well, it’s totally worth your read.
We, as parents and our children’s very first teachers, can begin to support early literacy development as soon as our kiddos are born.
Many of us do this already and don’t even realize how much we are helping to build a solid foundation of learning for our children.
Talking our way through diaper changes and feedings, through trips to the park or the grocery store, we give our little ones their first unwritten lessons on language and learning. By reading books, reciting rhymes, and playing games with our toddlers, we take this learning a step further, and the possibilities for sneaking in lessons here and there are endless.
Here are a few literacy terms every parent must know as their children approach reading and step into preschool.
This list is hardly complete, but it includes the basics without the Reading teacher jargon that is sometimes tough to get through. In the next few weeks and months, I’ll spotlight these topics and more in greater detail and provide ways that parents can support their children’s learning in these areas.
Here’s the skinny. . .
- Literacy Terms Every Parent Needs To Know:
- Comprehension: a complex process in which a reader interacts with a text in a specific context in order to construct meaning. Specific comprehension strategies should be taught and can be taught even before a child can read. Such strategies include making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, and synthesizing.
- Decoding: the process of figuring out a new word in a text. It’s really just deciphering text into understandable words.
- Fluency: the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and expression while comprehending a given text.
- High Frequency Words: are the words that appear most often in texts. Thanks to Drs. Dolch and Frye, we have age-leveled lists of these words beginning from the simplest in Kindergarten to the more difficult in upper grades.
- Phonological Awareness: the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sound units in words. It is one component of a comprehensive reading program and the precursor to solid literacy development.
- Phonemic Awareness: one component of phonological awareness. The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words.
- Phonics: an approach to teaching word identification that emphasizes letter-sound correspondences and their application to reading and spelling. The goal of phonics is to help children learn and apply the alphabetic principle–the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken words.
- Sight Words: are words that do not often follow phonics rules, so emerging readers should learn them ‘by sight’ in order to read them quickly and accurately.
- Vocabulary: a term used to describe the words that one must know in order to communicate with others, both orally and through print.
Want to have this sheet handy? Want to learn a little more?
Feel free to download the literacy terms every parent must know as a pdf to use as an easy reference. It includes these definitions, some in more detail, along with a few other words to know.
Still want more? Search the navigation bar right under the header! Or check a few more resources for you:


Former Classroom Teacher Supports USDA Standards for School Meals
During my college days as I studied to become an elementary school teacher, Wellness and Fitness for the Child was part of my elementary education coursework. Almost twenty years ago, I remember hearing for the first time the horrible truths about saturated fats, food coloring, partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup.
From then on, I decided to change my diet to live a better life. I began eating more organic and natural foods. I started reading labels and eliminated foods with artificial flavors and artificial coloring, partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup out of my diet.
In the classroom, I witnessed the impact that foods containing artificial colors had on my students. Their poor diet affected their ability to focus and often resulted in behavior problems. To no surprise, their school lunches lacked good foods, fruits and vegetables, but rather these same students ate lunches filled with high fat snacks loaded with sodium, food coloring and high fructose corn syrup.
During parent-teacher conferences, I urged parents to change their children’s diet. I encouraged them to make small food changes which in turn would produce positive results in their children’s behavior and learning.
Some parents tried to maintain healthier meals for their children and I would see immediate results in my students’ overall performance, however, unhealthy processed prepackaged food is inexpensive and easy, and eventually, their lunches would be loaded with food coloring and high fructose color syrup again.
Though a handful of my students had parents who supplied their lunches, many of my students came from low income families and depended on school for breakfast and lunch for their daily meals. Those students didn’t have the option to make better, healthier choices when selecting their breakfast and lunch items. They were limited to the choices made available that day.
As a mom, a runner and a former classroom teacher, I understand even more now the importance of fueling our bodies with the right foods and how foods impacts our overall performance. I have honest, open daily conversations with my children about making healthy food choices, portion control and limiting their sugar intake.
Thankfully, First Lady and mother, Michelle Obama, shares the same message as me. Her passion for good food choices helped build better, healthier school meal plans which are now available for all students. Since so many students (approximately 32 million as reported by the USDA) rely on school lunches for daily nutrition, schools must offer healthier choices. As educators, it’s our responsibility to fuel our future leaders with the right foods and protect them from diabetes, hypertension, health disease and obesity.
The new meal plans implemented include whole grain foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, however, the changes go beyond the school cafeteria lunch line. “Foods and beverages sold in vending machines will also contribute to a healthy diet”, as reported by USDA.
For the first time with the help of the USDA nutritional standards for school meals, our children have a fighting chance to learn better and live better.
This post is part of the National School Lunch Week with Healthy Food! A MomsRising Blog Carnival. Take a moment to read and comment on these thoughtful blogs, then tell us your story. Our stories are powerful and are what led administrators to set these rules in place.


Zero as Denominator
Date: 10/22/97 at 15:02:18 From: V. Amburgey Subject: Zero as denominator Why can't zero be in the denominator for rational numbers? My students, preservice elementary education teachers, have asked that this question be submitted to you. We have discussed this using the models of "parts of a whole region" model and the "division model." In discussing models for rational numbers, we have also discussed the "parts of a set" model for rational numbers. My students want to know why 0/0 can't be another name for one when using an empty set as their whole for the "part of a set" model. We look forward to your response. Thanks.
Date: 10/22/97 at 19:55:06 From: Doctor Tom Subject: Re: Zero as denominator The way formal mathematics works is that you make up rules for a system and then study that system. In principle, you can study ANY system this way, but in practice, useful systems get a lot more study than non-useful systems. For the sake of this discussion, let's just consider the set of rational numbers with +, -, x and /. The standard definition says that the operation of division is simply undefined if the denominator is zero. There's nothing on earth to prevent you from using mathematical methods to look at systems where division by zero makes sense, either sometimes (like only when the numerator is zero) or always. What I'll try to show below is that when you do this, you lose so much that adding the definition for division by zero is not worth it. For example, how shall I define 1/0? If you say "infinity," then there's suddenly a new object, "infinity," in your system, and you'd better tell me how it behaves. What's 1+infinity, for example? If it's infinity, then you can no longer use the rule that if you subtract the same thing from both sides of an equation the results will be equal: 1 + infinity = infinity Subtract infinity from both sides, and 1 = 0. So now if I ask you to solve this: x + 1 = 7 you can't just subtract 1 from each side and get x = 6, because there is no general rule. If you modify the rule to apply only to subtracting infinity, it's still no good. Is infinity-infinity equal to zero? If not, what is it? Is subtraction now only sometimes defined? If it is zero, then since 1+infinity=infinity, 1+infinity-infinity = infinity-infinity - I just replace one of the infinities in infinity-infinity=infinity-infinity by 1+infinity, and again I get 1 = 0. I can go on and on, but no matter how you decide to define 1/0, you make one or many of the basic laws of arithmetic fail, and you suddenly find that your system has lost the power to do almost anything. People have looked for good ways to add 1/0 to the rationals (or even just 0/0), and in every case, the new system's rules are so weakened that it is not good for anything useful. Geometers have had better luck. If you look at the line of real numbers and add an imaginary infinity to sort of "close the ends," you get a very servicable system called linear projective geometry. But this geometry has none of the addition or multiplication properties, and only deals with "neighborhoods" of points. It can be very instructional to try various ways to define 1/0 to the rationals (leaving all the other operations as-is), and see what basic laws of arithmetic have to be re-written. Be sure to look at the commutative, associative, and distributive laws, the existence of inverses, closure of operations, et cetera. I think division by zero has always been confusing because there is a lot to it. The books simply weasel out of it by saying, "Division by zero is not defined," and the instant knee-jerk response is, "Well, just define it." It's in trying to find a "reasonable" definition that all the ugly problems come up. -Doctor Tom, The Math Forum Check out our web site! http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
Search the Dr. Math Library:
Ask Dr. MathTM
© 1994-2015 The Math Forum


Ferdinand George Waldmuller was born January 15th 1793 in Vienna, was one of the leading Austrian painters of the Biedermeier period. Waldmuller studied at the Vienna Academy.
He lived in Bratislava, then worked as a teacher of art in the house of Count Gyulay. After his return to Vienna, Waldmuller copied paintings of old masters, and painted portraits, genre subjects, and still-life paintings, but is perhaps best known for his landscape paintings, which in their loving attention to detail illustrate Waldmuller's belief that the close study of nature should be the basis of painting.
Waldmuller became the most significant representative of Biedermeier: he was second to none in depicting nature in delicate colours. Waldmuller later became interested in nature and thus started painting landscape paintings (genre painting). Waldmuller's most notable oil paintings lie in the depiction of nature, where his sense for colours and large knowledge of nature helped him to achieve masterly skills.
Waldmuller was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna,. However, his views were in opposition to the official doctrines of ideal art promulgated by the Vienna Academy, and after he had published his works on art education, he was forced to retire in 1857. Waldmuller was rehabilitated in 1863.
Waldmuller died in August 23rd 1865 in Hinterbrühl, Austria.


Making Sense of Children's Drawings
By John Willats
Psychology Press – 2005 – 274 pages
The message of this book is a simple one: children learn to draw by acquiring increasingly complex and effective drawing rules. In this regard, learning to draw is like learning a language, and as with language children use these rules creatively, making infinite use of finite means. Learning to draw is thus, like learning a language, one of the major achievements of the human mind.
Theories of perception developed in the second half of the 20th century enable us to construct a new theory of children's drawings that can account for their many strange features. Earlier accounts contained valuable insights, but recent advances in the fields of language, vision, philosophy, and artificial intelligence now make it possible to resolve the many contradictions and confusions inherent in these early writings.
John Willats has written a book that is accessible to psychologists, artists, primary and junior schoolteachers, and parents of both gifted and normal children.
"This new, pioneering book addresses the typical questions about this complex research area, but does it in a way that feels more convincing than most other writings on the subject. It is an especially rigorous look, which takes nothing for granted and does not hesitate to doubt even the most sacred assumptions about children's drawings."
—Leonardo Digital Reviews
Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: Studying Children's Drawings. Contradictions and Confusions. In the Beginning. The Early Years. Where Do We Go From Here? Regions. Lines, Line Junctions, and Perspective. Part II: Mental Processes. "Seeing in" and the Mechanism of Development. The Drawing Process. Part III: Child Art. Children as Artists. Art Education. Summing Up. Appendix.


Circa: 1924 Condition: Used Size: 6-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches Type: hardcover Country of Origin: United States Publisher: Ginn and Co. Author: Thaddeus P. Giddings Pages: 224
Thaddeus P. Giddings, Et al
Music Education Series, 1924. Hard cover, 6-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches, 224 pages.
Ex-library, with library and discard marks. Front cover has lost its cloth surface, and corners are frayed. Paper has darkened, and there are numerous tears, some repaired with old style tape. Songs are all readable, great examples of singing in early schools.


General Geology 1
This course introduces potential geology majors earth science through an investigation of the environmental quality of the local environment, and supporting just-in-time lessons.
Entry Level :Environmental Geology Course Size
Integrated lecture and lab
University with graduate programs, including doctoral programs
This course models the activities of geoscientists in order to provide practice with foundational skills, and provide students with an early experience from which to judge their interest/aptitude for a career as an earth scientist.
In your department, do majors and non-majors take separate introductory courses? yes
They cover different topics. The majors course involves more extensive integration of research skills and use of technology.
If students take a "non-majors" course, and then decide to become a major, do they have to go back and take an additional introductory course? yes
This introductory course covers topics in geology (earth materials, weathering, energy resources, local geological setting) and meteorology. Lab work focuses on sampling and analysis of air-borne particulates and answer questions such as "what is in the air?", "how much particulate matter is in the air?", and "where did the particulates come from?".
1. Students will be able to inform members of the community about a Brooklyn-related environmental issue that they analyzed from the perspective of a geologist
2. Students will be able to evaluate a claim of an environmental risk as presented in the media
3. Students will be able to effectively and accurately describe complex data and procedures
The course is place-based, focusing on their own community and campus. Priority is given to the lab experience, and lecture material provides scaffolding for the practical activities.
Our students (and their families) are very career-minded. Modeling a practical urban environmental geology investigation provides students with experiences from which to judge their interest/aptitude for a career as an earth scientist, and provides skills and experience to aid in their search for career-related internships.
The main assessment is based on the presentation of their research findings to the class and invited guests (e.g., EPA representative, community official).
References and Notes:


What would happen if we put watercolors in shaving cream? What about vinegar ? Or oil? Great hands on science always begins with ” I wonder…” and this color lab science activity was no exception. We wondered what would happen if we mixed water colors and different household liquids. After we explored our set questions it was time for completely kid directed play. We used liquid watercolors made with plain old paint instead of food color to avoid staining. Food color will make much more vivid colors.
Time make a few predictions.
Grab your eye dropper and start adding colors. The eye dropper is important because it gives this activity an element of fine motor development as well, it takes a lot of coordination to make eye droppers work and works out the pincer grasp too.
She noted how slowly the colors floated down through the water.
The colors seems the same in the vinegar. I asked her if anything was different and she said the smell! Observing is a huge part of science!
The shaving cream was interesting because the color spread over it but didn’t mix much. She also discovered that if she pinched the eye dropper really hard the watercolor made a hole in the shaving cream.
The oil was rad. She had no previous experience with water in oil. She was amazed when they turned into little dots of color and slowly sank down to the bottom. I loved seeing her experience this for the first time.
Want more science ideas for little ones? Check out our Science for Kids Pinterest board.


By Matthew Hutson, published on November 1, 2009 - last reviewed on December 6, 2009
Thanks to video games, kids take interactive design for granted, but when Edwin Schlossberg founded ESI Design in 1977, show and tell meant look, don't touch. ESI has done "experiential" projects ranging from Web sites to store displays to museum exhibits (they're currently working on a new wing for the Museum of Science in Boston). No one does touchy-feely better.
What's your educational background?
I got an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in physics and English. I've always been interested in both the physical novel we live in and the sciences, where you prove things wrong or right.
I bet it's hard to get a job in either physics or literature with that.
One of my advisors said, "It's a fascinating but doomed effort." I wasn't worried. Two months after I finished I was asked to design the Brooklyn Children's Museum.
Which was ground-breaking, right?
Museums were about objects, not intellectual discovery. Montessori and Piaget were beginning to talk about interactive learning, but it was talk.
What have you learned about cognition?
The world doesn't have text around it. You should be able to experiment with learning from and with other people. Ideally, the subject matter of the experience is a collaborative reaction to a phenomenon. I never thought that was my goal until I saw how joyful and natural it was.
What's an example of collaborative discovery?
We did this thing at the Henry Ford museum called the Innovation Station—a giant ball-sorting machine that took 35 people to operate. Each role involved one key invention of the mechanical world, like pulleys, levers, an Archimedes' screw. You're kind of yelling at people—"Send it this way, send it that way!"
Is finding interactive solutions challenging?
We were asked to design the educational Macomber Farm for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They said they wanted children to learn about all the ways people are cruel to animals. I said: No you don't; that would be off-putting. So in one area we made masks that replicate the optics of each of the farm animals so you see the world through their eyes. The chicken mask says, "I'm seeing like a chicken." Humor is a really good way to get people to do stuff they might be embarrassed about doing. To get a dialogue going is good, even if it's just smiles.
Could you theoretically make any material interesting to anyone?
Maybe. We did a classical music education center. Music is about teamwork, notation, metaphor, storyline, organizing sounds in space, ritual, and celebration. So we decided those would be the subject matter for the experiences. And it worked.


Education News and Resources
21st Century Leaning
The Partnership for 21 Century - a national organization that advocates for 21st century readiness for every student.
California Coalition for P21 - a coalition of statewide organizations advocate for 21st century readiness for all California students.
Responsive Classroom - a widely used, research-backed approach to elementary education that increases academic achievement, decreases problem behaviors, improves social skills, and leads to more high-quality instruction.
Edutopia - provide strategies and resources for educators on 21st Century Learning models
Community Outreach and Fundraising Guides
Our Community Outreach and Fund raising Guides were developed by a team of core parent volunteers from a Spring 2010 fundraising campaign in the Cupertino Union School District. This unprecedented district-wide community fundraising effort ultimately raised over $2.5 million in eight weeks, helping to restore 107 teachers' jobs slated for elimination due to state budget cuts.
The campaign brought together parents, teachers, administrators, unions, local businesses,
and an existing education foundation - all doing their part to preserve our children's current quality of education. Their expertise in both outreach and fundraising is invaluable.


Graduate Catalog 2015-2016
Home | Graduate Catalog 2015-2016 | Graduate Programs, Disciplines, and Course Offerings | Graduate Programs in Education | Graduate Education Courses | EDE - Childhood Education (Elementary Education) Courses | EDE 652 Children’s Literature
EDE 652 Children’s Literature
3 hours; 3 credits
Examinations of the place of reading in the child’s life. Use of reading techniques to acquire enjoyment, interest, information, and, especially, appreciation. Storytelling materials appropriate for children in nursery school and kindergarten. Interpretive and critical study of literature suitable for children of varied abilities and backgrounds in elementary grades. Introduction to promising practices of using children’s literature in various fields.
Up one level
Click arrowheads to expand or collapse contents


Report: Rural Pupils More Likely to Be in Special Education
Children in rural America are 60 percent more likely than their nonrural peers to be placed in special education programs in kindergarten, according to an analysis of 22,000 pupils that was sponsored by a research center at Mississippi State University.
There are also wide disparities in school readiness when rural children are evaluated by race, according to the report from the university’s National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives. About 8 percent of rural black children were proficient at identifying the beginning sounds of words, compared with 22 percent of nonrural black children. About 26 percent of rural white children had the letter-sound skill, compared with 40 percent of nonrural white children.
Early-education programs based in centers also appeared to be less available to rural children, compared with children in more densely populated areas. According to the analysis, 35 percent of rural white children and 14 percent of rural black children attended an early-education program in the year before kindergarten, compared with 37 percent of nonrural black children and 54 percent of nonrural whites.
The findings are just part of a series of reports to be released by the Mississippi State research program, said Cathy Grace, the director of the national center. The reports are intended to address a dearth of research into the lives of rural children, she said.
“Our hope is that we can get people to start to talk first and then move into action,” Ms. Grace said. The findings are scheduled to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the Fairfax, Va.-based Society of Prevention Research. Future analyses will focus on such topics as professional development of early-childhood teachers, parental mental health, and mental-health services for families.
The analysis, which examines children who entered kindergarten in the 1998-99 school year, draws on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics under the U.S. Department of Education. The longitudinal study has compiled details on those children for a wide range of family, school, community, and individual characteristics.
The National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives asked Child Trends, a Washington-based research organization, to compile the data for the analysis. For the analysis, the category “rural” was based on the U.S. Census Bureau definition, which includes places of fewer than 2,500 people outside urban areas, as well the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study’s definition that includes small towns of 25,000 or fewer residents.
Several positive aspects of rural life for young students appear in the analysis. Rural children are more likely than nonrural pupils to be in kindergarten classes of 15 or fewer children. They also are more likely to live in safe neighborhoods, and those with noncustodial or nonresident parents are more likely to stay in contact with them.
The analysis does not discuss causes for the disparities between rural and nonrural children. Ms. Grace suggested that rural children, who are more likely than nonrural children to be poor, may have parents who are working minimum-wage jobs and more than one job.
“They may have different people coming in and being the care providers,” she said. “The stability is not there.”
Such factors may play a part in rural children’s academic disadvantage when they start school, compared with their nonrural peers.
Bob Mooneyham, the executive director of the National Rural Education Association, an organization of teachers, administrators, and researchers that is based in Norman, Okla., said the report’s findings are not surprising.
“I wouldn’t take issue with that number at all,” Mr. Mooneyham said last week, referring to the figure that rural children are 60 percent more likely to be placed in special education when they start school. “It’s a poverty issue,” he said, “and it points to the need for the states and the federal government to start paying attention to the needs of rural children.”
Vol. 24, Issue 38, Page 12
- World History Teacher
- The Bolles School, Jacksonville, FL
- Director, Adult and Career Education
- The School District of Lee County, Fort Myers, FL
- Middle School Teachers - $125K Salary
- The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School, New York, NY
- High School Physics Teacher
- The International Eduator (TIE), Major cities worldwide, In, United Kingdom
- High School Principal
- Unionvile-Chadds Ford School District, Kennett Square, PA


Specialization in Teaching Mathematics
Dr. Zhonghe Wu
Designed to improve the quality of teaching mathematics in grades K-9, courses focus on the pedagogy of mathematics and the development of balanced instructional programs that meet the needs of today s diverse students. Content prepares teacher credential holders and/or candidates for the CSET 1 and 2 Foundational Level Mathematics Exam. In order to be successful in this program, potential candidates should have basic mathematics knowledge and skills (equivalent to CSET multiple subject and Praxis II elementary education) or above.
Program Learning Outcomes
- Analyze current principles, state and national standards, trends and issues in teaching Mathematics in grades K-9.
- Demonstrate the ability to develop a balanced program of mathematics instruction that includes conceptual understanding, procedural fluency and problem solving in Algebra, Geometry, Statistics, Probability and Number Theory.
- Apply evidence-based best practices research in the delivery and evaluation of a balanced mathematics education program.
Required Courses (4 courses; 18 quarter units)


Posted 3 years ago on Dec. 16, 2011, 10:42 a.m. EST by paulg5
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Building a case for Human Rights Violations (articles in whole or in part) that were committed against OWS and the 99%
Articles taken from The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/#atop
These are some of the human rights violations I have observed in many cities in the United States and countries throughout the world since the inception of the OWS and 99% movement on September 17, 2011
Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any
Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Article 21. (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
Article 23. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests
Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.


An Oregon State University researcher has found a relationship between motor skill deficiencies and the severity of the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder in very young children.
The findings, believed to the be the first to show a direct relationship between motor skills and autism severity, indicate that development of fine and gross motor skills should be included in treatment plans for young children with autism, said Megan MacDonald, an assistant professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences.
"Recognizing those deficits really early gives us more time to help children catch up to their peers in regards to motor skill," said MacDonald, who is an expert on the movement skills of children with autism.
The research was based on a study of the development and motor skills of 159 children ages 12 months to 33 months old, including 110 children with an autism diagnosis. Results were published this week in Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly.
The motor skill deficiencies among the children with autism were not related to intellectual ability, MacDonald said. She found that the children with autism were nearly a year behind their typical peers in fine motor skills, such as holding a spoon or grasping a small toy. They also were about six months behind in their gross motor skills, including activities like running and jumping.
"It's not that big a deal if we're talking about older kids, but for kids between 1 and 3 years old, those are substantial deficits, almost one-third of their life," MacDonald said. "At that age, they're like little sponges -- we can teach them motor skills."
Most autism treatment plans for young children focus on social communication because the disability has such a significant effect in that area. Research has shown that successful social communication interventions can improve IQ, language, play skills and more for children with autism.
Incorporating fine and gross motor skill development into early interventions could provide a similar boost, MacDonald said. She also recommends that parents consider adaptive physical education programs, which are designed around a child's abilities and needs.
MacDonald said she hopes the new research will help build awareness about the importance of motor skill development and the need to include adapted physical education and physical and occupational therapy in treatment plans. Future research will look at different types of motor skill interventions to see if there are some that work better than others, she said.
- Megan MacDonald et al. Motor Skills and Calibrated Autism Severity in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, April 20124 DOI: 10.1123/apaq.2013-0068
Cite This Page:


Early elementary school-aged children benefit from rich, stimulating environments in which literacy activities are woven in throughout the school day. They benefit from a literacy program that includes direct instruction in all aspects of reading and writing along with many opportunities to practice their skills. Consider these 10 simple tips for finding or evaluating an environment that will foster first graders’ or readers’ and writers’ language and literacy development.
- Does the classroom use a balanced reading program?
A balanced reading program is one that includes phonics instruction, or instruction in letter-sound associations and word patterns, practice in recognizing common words automatically, and instruction in decoding, or how to figure out unknown words. In addition, a balanced reading program includes instruction in oral reading for accuracy and fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension.
- Do children and teachers discuss books regularly?
Children extend their understanding of what they read and learn new perspectives though book discussions with peers and teachers. Look for classrooms in which children routinely read books and discuss them in large groups, small groups, guided reading groups and “book clubs.”
- Do children spend some time each day reading independently?
When children become readers, one of the ways in which they learn to be better readers is by reading on their own. A quality program for first- through third-graders offers children assistance in selecting appropriate books either by a teacher or librarian and time to read by themselves for a few minutes each day.
- Is there a regular read-aloud time?
Although they can read by themselves, early elementary school-aged children can still benefit from hearing harder books read aloud to them in order to learn new vocabulary and information. Some teachers pair read-aloud time with lunch or snack, and children generally look forward to this opportunity to relax and listen to a good story.
- Does the classroom have a library and a reading area?
Look for classrooms that have a library containing varied reading choices at a variety of reading levels. Class collections that are arranged by level, topic or genre help children to make appropriate book selections. A comfortable reading area with pillows and soft seating provides a cozy environment that helps children view reading as a pleasurable activity.
- Is a process approach to writing used?
Children in grades one through three learn best when they have opportunities to write daily about their own experiences, thoughts and feelings. Writing programs that focus on writing as a multi-step process involving brainstorming and organizing ideas, writing a first draft, revising and editing, are ideal for early elementary students.
- Is spelling taught directly?
A quality language arts program for early elementary school-aged children should include some instruction as well as some work in applying spelling skills to writing.
- Do teachers regularly assess children’s work?
Regular assessment of children’s work helps teachers to know how and what to teach. Assessment does not necessarily mean a standardized test, but can include listening to children’s reading and observation of reading behaviors. Look for a classroom in which teachers use clear methods of assessment.
- Do you see your child’s racial or cultural background reflected in the classroom?
All children should have the opportunity to see books with characters who look and speak like them. Make sure that your child will see evidence of his background in the classroom, either through a diversity of teachers and students or through books and other materials.
- Is the link between home and school valued?
Children learn best when parents and teachers work together. Look for environments in which teachers have ways of communicating with parents regularly, such as newsletters or notes on your child’s day. Some schools even offer evening workshops or have lending libraries of parenting resources.


Children are natural poets. They speak poetry all day long. They say wonderful poetic gems that surprise and delight us and help us look at the world in a new way. In Climb Inside a Poem: Reading and Writing Poetry Across the Year, Georgia Heard and Lester Laminack tap into this natural inclination and demonstrate how reading and writing poetry can also support and extend young children's language and literacy development. Through an anthology of original children's poems and related lessons, Georgia and Lester describe how to weave poetry into the fabric of a school day by reading a variety of poems for a variety of purposes. Building on these experiences, children then engage in a formal unit of study on writing poetry.
Climb Inside a Poem has three components.
- The poetry anthology, Climb Inside a Poem: Original Poems for Children, uses the writings of contemporary children’s poets, whimsical illustrations, and an expansive big book format (14”x18”) to create a 36-page poetry playground.
- Lessons for Climb Inside a Poem provides a five-day sequence of lessons for each poem in the anthology. Through repeated readings and by accessing the poems from multiple perspectives, these lessons model how poetry can be used to support basic concepts in print, develop word awareness, expand reading and writing fluency, and help children write with feeling and voice.
- Reading and Writing Poetry Across the Year takes a broad view of poetry and considers how poems can be used to reinforce and extend a literacy curriculum. Organized into three separate sections, the minilessons in this guide offer tips for outfitting and organizing classrooms where poetry can flourish; highlight a variety of reading strategies that immerse children in the words and music of poetry; and present a complete unit of study for writing poetry.
Instruction in Climb Inside a Poem is organized around 29 poems by acclaimed children’s authors. (listed in order of appearance)
- Where Do I Find Poetry? by Georgia Heard
- Sky Wish by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
- Happy Toes by Pat Mora
- Dear Friend in the Desert by Kristine O’Connell George
- Tooth Truth by Lee Bennett Hopkins
- Quack, Quack by Pat Mora
- Why? Why? Why? by Lee Bennett Hopkins
- Who’s Coming to Tea? by Jane Yolen
- Making Soup by Marilyn Singer
- How I Hopscotch by Kristine O’Connell George
- When I Ride My Bike by Patricia Hubbell
- School Bus Lady by J. Patrick Lewis
- Poem for My Friend by Patricia Hubbell
- Best Friend by Marilyn Singer
- Birthday Candles by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
- Song for My Swing by Patricia Hubbell
- The Stray Dog by Alice Schertle
- Puppy Love by Jane Yolen
- Just Like Grandpa by Alice Schertle
- Happy Teeth by J. Patrick Lewis
- The Cedar Tree by Joseph Bruchac
- Laundromat by X. J. Kennedy
- Emma by Janet Wong
- Spring Riddles by Beverly McLoughland
- Sun and Moon: A Poem for Two Voices by Bobbi Katz
- Singing Down the Sun by Marilyn Singer
- Hey, Crow! by Deborah Chandra
- Hidden Treasure by Bobbi Katz
- Night Story by Beverly McLoughland
Label companion resources
Label support materials
Label product support
- Invite Georgia Heard to speak at your school, district, or conference through Heinemann Speakers.
- Invite Lester L. Laminack to speak at your school, district, or conference through Heinemann Speakers.
No sales resources available for this title


Child Development and Education is a comprehensive child development text written specifically for educators. Focusing on concepts and principles that are important to developmental theorists and to educational practitioners, this text is uniquely useful to those interested in the educational implications of developmental scholarship.
Applies Developmental Theory to Classroom Practice: Development and Practice features offer concrete educational strategies for facilitating student development. Observation Guidelines tables help the reader develop skills in observing developmental nuances in children and adolescents.
Showcases Real Students and Their Work: The text extensively illustrates concepts and research with cases about and artifacts from real children and adolescents. Authentic case studies begin and end each chapter. The text also makes frequent use of actual artifacts from children's journals, sketchbooks, and school assignments.
Explores the Core Themes in Development: Every chapter examines ways in which development is the complex product of interacting forcesnature, nurture, and children's own efforts. The authors also spotlight universal developmental trends and areas marked with substantial diversity. Finally, the text analyzes developmental changes for their underlying nature: do they take the form of dramatic qualitative changes, or are they the outcome of many small, trend-like quantitative changes?
1. Making a Difference in the Lives of Children and Adolescents.
Child and Adolescent Development as a Field of Inquiry. Basic Issues in the Study of Development. Theories of Child and Adolescent Development. General Trends in Children's and Adolescents' Development. From Theory to Practice. 2. Developmental Research with Children and Adolescents.
Common Beliefs about Children and Education. Role of Research in the Study of Development. Key Features of Developmental Research. Data Collection Techniques. Research Designs in the Study of Children and Adolescents. From Research to Practice. Gathering Information in the Classroom. 3. Physical Development.
Nature and Nurture in Physical Development. General Principles of Physical Development. The Brain and Its Development. Physical Development across Childhood and Adolescence. General Issues in Physical Well-Being. Special Physical Needs. 4. Cognitive Development 1: Piaget and Vygotsky.
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development. Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development. Comparing Piaget and Vygotsky. 5. Cognitive Development 2: Cognitive Processes.
Information Processing Theory. Development of Metacognition and Cognitive Strategies. Children's Construction of Theories. Neo-Piagetian Approaches to Cognitive Development. Critique of Information Processing, Theory Theory, and Neo-Piagetian Approaches. Exceptionalities in Information Processing. 6. Intelligence.
Defining Intelligence. Theoretical Perspectives of Intelligence. Measuring Intelligence. Hereditary and Environmental Influences on Intelligence. Developmental Trends in IQ Scores. Group Differences in Intelligence. Critique of Current Perspectives on Intelligence. Educational Implications of Theories and Research on Intelligence. Exceptionalities in Intelligence. 7. Language Development.
Theoretical Perspectives of Language Development. Trends in Language Development. Development of a Second Language. Diversity in Language Development. Exceptionalities in Language Development. The Big Picture: How Language Development Fits into the Larger Scheme of Things. 8. Development of Literacy: Reading and Writing.
Theories of Literacy Development. Literacy in the Early Years. Development in Reading. Development in Writing. Developing Literacy in a Second Language. Diversity in Literacy Development. Exceptionalities in Reading and Writing Development. Reading and Writing as Facilitators of Cognitive Development. 9. Personal and Emotional Development.
Early Attachments. Emotional Development. Development of a Sense of Self. A Life-Span Approach to Personal and Emotional Development: Erickson's Theory. 10. Social Understanding and Moral Development.
Social Understanding. Moral Development. 11. Development of Motivation and Self-Regulation.
Behaviorist Perspectives of Motivation. Social Cognitive Perspectives of Motivation. Trait Perspectives of Motivation. Cognitive Perspectives of Motivation. Critiquing Theories of Motivation. Fostering Motivation in the Classroom. Development of Self-Regulation. Effects of the Classroom Environment. 12. Families.
Socialization in the Family. Family Structures. Family Influences on Children. The Other Side of the Coin: Children's Influences on Families. A Look Inside: How Parents Conceptualize Childhood. Educational Partnerships with Families. 13. Interpersonal Relationships.
Development of Interpersonal Behaviors. Peer Relationships. Romantic Relationships and Sexuality. 14. Growing Up in Context.
Culture and Ethnicity. Historical Events. Religious Affiliation. Socionomic Status. Neighborhoods and Communities. The Media.


Chalk Pastel Silhouette: Free Lesson Plan Download
Level: 3-5 Art Education Lesson Plan
Art Elements: Color and Value
Art Skills: Drawing, Painting
Making Connections: Writing
* Get more free lessons like this, on our Lessons Page
This lesson does not take very many class periods, and I found most of the students were very happy with their results if you can get them to draw large enough. 3rd grade is my favorite grade level to use this with, but it’s very adaptable to all age levels. Need a literacy connection? Have students write stories about their artwork. Enjoy!


SPONSORED BY: Britannica Digital Learning and School Library Journal
EVENT DATE AND TIME: Monday, May 6, 2013, 3:00 - 4:00 PM ET/12:00 - 1:00 PM PT
School librarians play a key role in ensuring that students have the tools and knowledge to succeed. Now, in light of the Common Core's increased emphasis on college, career, and world readiness, is your school library equipped with the right next-generation digital resources for mastering 21st century skills? What criteria should librarians use to evaluate the digital resources available to students? And how can you best coach students to look at the resources they encounter online with the same discerning eye?
Using examples from Britannica Digital Learning's exciting portfolio of digital solutions, this webinar will illustrate valuable criteria that school librarians can apply when evaluating online resources to support digital literacy development. Participants also will learn a new approach, using a third-party rubric, for guiding students through the objective assessment of resources they find when reading or researching online.
Sara Torpey-Curriculum Specialist, Britannica Digital Learning
Wendy Stephens - Librarian, Cullman High School, Cullman, AL
Daryl Grabarek- Libriarian, PS 89/IS 289, New York, NY
Editor, Curriculum Connections, School Library Journal
Can't make it on May 6th? No problem! Register now and you will get an email reminder from School Library Journal post-live event when the webcast is archived and available for on-demand viewing at your convenience!
Follow us on Twitter! @SLJEvent
By registering for this webcast, you are agreeing that School Library Journal
may share your registration information with sponsors currently shown and future sponsors of this event. Click here
to review the entire School Library Journal


Music Resource Links
- CUNY Catalog
- Online Databases (citations and full-text articles)
The largest full-text database for scholarly articles on music. Over 80 journals have full-text access while over 400 are indexed.
The most comprehensive citation database for music. It contains citations and abstracts for scholarly works in music, including articles, books, bibliographies, catalogues, dissertations, Festschriften, films, videos, iconographies, critical commentaries to complete works, ethnographic recordings, conference proceedings, reviews, etc.
- Music Index
A comprehensive guide to music periodical literature. The index provides citations to articles, reviews, obituaries, and other materials found in more than 700 international music periodicals.
A fulltext journal provider that contains the complete back runs of 32 international titles dedicated music.
- Humanities Abstracts
Provides abstracts of resources on the performing arts, including music; dance; film; history; journalism; philosophy; religion; etc.
- Essay and General Literature
An index to essays and articles in book collections in the humanities, including music, and social sciences
- Project Muse
Provides fulltext journals, including six music titles (Computer Music Journal, Latin American Music Review, Leonardo Music Journal, Notes, The Opera Quarterly, Philosophy of Music Education Review)
A Worldwide bibliographic database providing citations of books, journals, audio/visual materials, maps, scores, etc.
- Indiana University Digital Score Collection
- Harvard Loeb Music Library Digital Score Collection - Selected digital scores
- Mozart Digital Neue Ausgabe
- New York Philharmonic Digital Archives - programs, scores, and images from the New York Philharmonic archives
- Early Music Online - a pilot project making 300 of the world's earliest extant volumes of printed music held by the British Library
- Opera and Ballet Primary Sources Index
- BPM Online - British Postgraduate Musicology
- Critical Musicology
- ECHO: A Music Centered Journal
- Electronic Musicological Review
- Ethnomusicology Online
- EUNOMIOS - Online Journal for Theory, Analysis, and Semiotics of Music
- Gramophone Magazine
- JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning
- Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music
- New Music Box - web magazine from the American Music Center
- The William and Gayle Cook Music Library, Indiana University
Another exhaustive list of music resources on the web.
- Louisiana State University Music Library
UCLA Music Library
University of Washington Music Library
Each offer useful compilations of websites and resources, although none are as comprehensive as Duke or the University of Indiana Sites.
- American Musicological Society lists of websites
An extensive list of useful internet music sites for all musicians, educators, and scholars.
Offers a broad range of links dealing with music research, professional music issues, music news, and other information.
- Harvard’s web resources for music scholars
Offers meta-lists for music research.
- Classical Net
An easy, quick reference tool for a wide variety of information on composers, performers, genres, and period information as well as reviews of books and recordings, articles, books, and other valuable resources.
- Harmony Central
Caters to popular and commercial music listing a plethora of useful websites and resources.
- American Music Center
- American Music Therapy Organization
- American Musicological Society
- College Music Society
- Early Music America
- Electronic Music Foundation
- International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centers
- MENC: National Association for Music Education
- Music Library Association
- Music Theory Society of New York State
- North American British Music Studies Association
- Society for Ethnomusicology
- Society for Music Theory
- Library of Congress
- New York Public Library
- Directory of Music Collections in Canada
- Music Libraries in the United States


July 17, 1752|
|Died||November 12, 1832(aged 80)|
After getting his elementary education in Garegnano, he went on to study at the College of San Alessandro in Milan, under the tutelage and with the support of the Order of Barnabus, which he later joined. After completing his studies in the humanities, physical and mathematical sciences, philosophy, and theology, he was ordained as a priest in 1775.
When Napoleon I established the Republic of Lombardy, Oriani refused to swear an oath against the monarchy, and the new republican government modified the oath of allegiance on his behalf. He was retained in his position at the observatory and was made president of the commission appointed to regulate the new system of weights and measures.
When the republic became a Napoleonic kingdom, Oriani was awarded the Iron Crown and the Legion of Honour, was made a count and senator, and was appointed to measure the arc of the meridian between the zeniths of Rimini and Rome.
Given his strong interest in astronomy, Oriani was appointed on the staff of the Observatory of Brera in Milan in 1776, becoming assistant astronomer in 1778 and director in 1802. In 1778 he began publishing various in-depth dissertations on astronomical objects, the Effemeridi di Milano (Ephemerides of Milan).
A very capable astronomer, Oriani's work began to attract considerable attention. His research in the areas of astronomic refraction, the obliquity of the ecliptic and orbital theory were of considerable noteworthiness in themselves; but his greatest achievement was his detailed research of the planet Uranus, which had been discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. Oriani devoted significant time to observations of Uranus, calculating its orbital properties, which he published as a booklet of tables in 1793.
After others had shown that Uranus was not on a parabolic orbit but rather in a roughly circular orbit, he calculated the orbit in 1783. In 1789, Oriani improved his calculations by accounting for the gravitational effects of Jupiter and Saturn.
In addition to his continual contributions to the Effemeridi, he published a series of memoirs on spherical trigonometry: the Memorie dell' Istituto Italiano, 1806–10, and the Istruzione suelle misure e sui pesi, 1831.
In De refractionibus astronomicis, Oriani showed that astronomical refraction could be expanded as a series of odd powers of (tan Z), where Z is the observed zenith distance. Such a series had previously been derived by J. H. Lambert, who dropped all but the first term. However, Oriani investigated the higher terms, and he found that neither of the first two terms depended on the structure of the atmosphere.
The series expansion he obtained was effective at up to 85 degrees from the zenith. Unlike previous approximations, however, Oriani's two-term expression did not depend on a hypothesis regarding atmospheric temperature or air density in relation to altitude. Thus, the effects of atmospheric curvature are only dependent upon the temperature and pressure at the location of the observer.
Oriani's theorem explains why Cassini's uniform-density model works well except near the horizon—the atmospheric refraction from the zenith to a zenith distance of 70° is not dependent on the details of the distribution of the gas.
- Chi era costui?
- Catholic Encyclopedia
- Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
- Alexandro Malaspina Research Centre
- Ephemerides astronomicae anni 1788: Appendix ad ephemerides Anni 1788 (Appresso Giuseppe Galeazzi, Milano, 1787) pp. 164–277
- Department of Astronomy & Mount Laguna Observatory San Diego State University


To The Editor:
What academic endeavor combines elements of mathematics, physics, physical education, foreign language, history, culture and the discipline of team sports into one all-encompassing activity?
The answer is music. During this months celebration of Music in Our Schools Month, which is observed each March, Massena Music Friends would like to remind everyone that school music programs are a vital component to a sound, basic education.
Music holds a special place in the overall educational curriculum, in part, because of its multi-faceted and cross-curricular components.
Music is based on subdivisions of time and as such develops mathematical skills. The infinite varieties of musical rhythm present constant mathematical challenges to musicians of all skill levels.
Music is a foreign language. The mastery of musical symbols and notation allows performers to say things that are not possible in everyday speech. In addition, many musical style and tempo markings are Italian words or phrases. Vocal music presents the opportunity for musicians to sing in a variety of tongues.
Music is history and culture. Almost all music reflects something about the era and location in which it was composed. Music often presents opportunities to present a work of art in the context of things that were happening in the world at the time, and/or a broader cultural context.
Music is physical education. Learning how to sing or play an instrument develops important physical characteristics like proper breath control, gross and fine motor muscle coordination, stamina and perseverance.
Music is time management. Academic classes are assigned homework, which hones the skills and concepts being taught and teaches students to manage time well. Music often requires outside practice and application of those same time management skills.
Music is teamwork. Athletes learn the basic skills of their sport, practice them individually, rehearse them repeatedly with their teammates and apply all of those skills learned to game situations so the team can perform well. School musicians go through the same life-skills process, with the end result being that they come together as a team to do something they alone could never do.
Numerous studies bear out the benefits of music education from higher-than-average graduation rates, lower dropout rates and higher SAT and ACT scores among school musicians.
Aside from being important from an academic standpoint, music programs have traditionally played a major role in linking schools to the community. This is especially true in Massena. Through public performances like winter and spring concerts, the spring tour by the select ensembles, and the annual musical production, students showcase their talents to a public audience. These performances show the best of what our students, under the professional guidance of their music teachers, can do.
In short, there are as many reasons to support fully-funded school music programs as there are students who participate in them, be they a kindergartener discovering how body movement and rhythms are connected, or a high school senior blowing an improvised solo in the jazz ensemble.
Later this month, you have an opportunity to see over 80 reasons to support music and the arts, both on stage and behind the scenes, during the Massena High School music and drama departments production of Back to the 80s. The show runs Friday and Saturday with curtain time at 8 p.m. both nights. Tickets are just $10.
Massena Music Friends invites you come to the show a little early and enjoy some donation-only refreshments and some super-cool 1980s-themed decorations in the lobby before the curtain rises. Well even have an 80s-themed photo booth for your entertainment, so bring your digital camera. Tickets are available at the high school box office 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. weekdays, or if you cant make it to the school to buy tickets, music director Chris Lincoln will accept credit/debit card ticket orders by phone. Tickets ordered by phone can be picked up at the box office the night of the show. Call 764-3710, ext. 3128. However you choose to buy tickets, please do so. The students and their directors have worked very hard and deserve our support. Happy MIOSM.
Massena Music Friends


Why should Jewish Congregations care about Guatemala?
This post is part of a series highlighting the amazing work of our 2013 Irving J. Fain Awardwinners. Continue to check back to learn about the inspirational projects at Reform congregations across North America.
During the April Consultation on Conscience in Washington, D.C. there was a sea of Guatemalan kippot adorning the heads of many participants. What did this have to do with Judaism? Social Justice? Tikkun Olam? Actually, everything. Individual Mayan women from the little village of San Antonio Aguas Calientes in Guatemala wove each kippah. The organization, Nueva Generación, coordinates a women’s co-op that provides the women with a sustainable wage to help support their families. The RAC graciously allowed the kippot to be sold and over $1,000 was raised – money that goes directly to the Nueva Generación preschool that educates the youngest residents in the village.
Nueva Generación was recognized as a 2013 recipient of the Irvin J. Fain Social Action Award. It is a project coordinated with the Raleigh congregation, Temple Beth Or. What started as an initial attempt to place some of the most needy children in schools has grown to a 501(c)(3) organization that provides over 125 scholarships, a preschool, a co-op and congregational service trips.
With the age of Internet and ease of travel, Guatemala is closer than you might think. It is home to over 6 million indigenous Maya where there are 23 different Mayan languages still spoken today. Guatemala experienced a 36-year war between the military and resistance. The war saw hundreds of Mayan villages razed, innumerable human rights violations, displacement of a million people and over 200,000 lives lost. The United Nations has classified the conflict as genocide. Guatemala exhibits one of the most extreme combinations of systemic poverty and inequality in the hemisphere. The indigenous populations suffer from malnutrition (rates of which rank among the worst in the world), poor health outcomes, racism, high rates of illiteracy and low levels of educational attainment. Together, these factors virtually guarantee that the next generation will be no better off than the last.
During a presentation at the Consultation, Rabbi Sidney Schwartz explained that as Jews we can no longer look at our immediate clan or environment as our neighbors. In this age, the world is our neighborhood. And as Jews, we have a responsibility to move outside ourselves and reach out to the entire global community. This is what TBO and Nueva Generación are doing. They are reaching out to a small community and trying to improve people’s lives and help facilitate a more productive future. Seeing education as a human right, scholarships are provided to children who otherwise would not be able to attend schools. $150 covers one year of elementary education. It is a small price to provide the foundation for a new generation of learners and community contributors. If every Reform congregation (all 900!) committed to one student, every child in the village would receive an education. Yes, there are more villages and many more children in many more countries. But we as Jews would have a huge impact in one place. Just like the quote by Edward Hale, “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”
So the opportunity is there for the Reform Jews in the North America to make a difference in another part of the world. Money will provide scholarships, service trips provide hands-on assistance and can be easily organized, and kippot can be purchased and worn as a symbol of social justice. Temple Beth Or has their next trip planned for December 20-30, 2013. A service trip for your congregation can be organized for a group of 12-20 members. Activities such as building houses, constructing chicken coops, volunteering in the preschool, and offering medical clinics, all can be arranged. One week of service can change lives forever for the recipients and the participants. My hope is that every congregation will make this commitment, help our neighbors, and fulfill the obligation of tikkun olam. For more information, please email Cindy Schneider at or visit www.nuevagen.org.
Cindy Schneider is the Social Action Chair at Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, NC.


National Standards for Music Education that are taught in my classroom:
Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
While singing is not a common activity in most band classes, vocalization does help students with pitch placement, especially for brass instruments. Students are encouraged to sing their music on a neutral syllable (like "Doo") before playing it to help build a good internal sense of pitch.
Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
Accent on Achievement provides detailed instruction in the performance of a wide variety of music representing diverse genres and cultures. You'll find a wealth of folk and classical music throughout Books 1 & 2. Text and photographs reinforce good posture, playing position and embouchure.
Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
Students learn how to create their own variations and participate in carefully structured exercises in basic improvisation in pentatonic and major keys, as well as playing by ear.
Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
In a series of creativity exercises, students learn to manipulate the elements of music, including rhythm, dynamics, orchestration and form. This knowledge is then applied in the writing of short compositions, which may then be performed by the students.
Reading and notating music.
Ample opportunity exists throughout the method for the development of music reading skills. Special theory exercises and rhythm drills are incorporated in the student books and in the Teacher's Resource Kit. Students practice notating music as well.
Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
The CD in the Teacher's Resource Kit serves as the basis for a series of listening exercises designed to involve students in describing specific musical events and analyzing the use of the elements of music in musical selections.
Evaluating music and music performances.
Questions are posed throughout the conductor's score that may be used to engage students in a thoughtful evaluation of their performance as well as the performance of others.
Understanding relationships between music, other arts forms, disciplines outside the arts, and music in relation to history and culture.
Reproducible worksheets in the Teacher's Resource Kit provide opportunities for exploring the interrelationship between music and the culture-at-large in a variety of time periods and subject areas. Students will learn about the cultural and historical backgrounds of several musical selections in their book, with tie-ins to related arts and other subjects.


NEW RESOURCE FROM NAEA
NATIONAL ART EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
Office of the Executive Director
Phone 703-860-8000 Fax 703-860-2960
Art and Cognition
by Arthur Efland
Available from NAEA
May 8, 2002 — In this in-depth text, the preeminent art education scholar
Arthur Efland not only sheds light on the problems inhibiting art education,
but also demonstrates how art contributes to the overall development of the
mind. Delineating how the development of artistic interests and ability is an
important aspect of cognition and learning, he shows how art helps
individuals construct cultural meaning, a crucial component of social
communication—a foundation for lifelong learning that includes the arts.
In Art and Cognition, Arthur Efland:
o Explains the cognitive nature of learning in the visual arts—debunking the
persistent perception of the arts as emotive only.
o Looks at recent understandings of the mind and intelligence to determine
how they bear on questions of the intellectual status of the arts.
o Explains how a cognitively oriented conception of teaching will change the
ways that the arts are taught.
o Discusses the ways in which new developments in cognitive science can be
applied to art education.
o Describes how the arts can be used to develop cognitive ability in children.
o Identifies implications for art curricula, teaching practices, and the
reform of general education.
Topics: The Uneasy Connection Between Art & Psychology o Artistic
Development in Cognitive Developmental Theories o The Cognitive Revolution &
Conceptions of Learning o Cognitive Flexibility Theory & Learning in the Arts
o Obstacles to Art Learning & Their Assessment o Imagination in Cognition o A
Cognitive Argument for the Arts
Order No. #272 Art and Cognition
ISBN 0-8077-4218-X 216 pages
Member Price $18.00; Non-member Price $22.00
ORDER INFORMATION: Payment must accompany order. Shipping and Handling:
Canadian add 25%; foreign add 40% shipping. Virginia residents add 4.5% sales
tax. U.S. shipping/handling: up to $10.00 — $3.00; $10.01 - $20.00 — $4.00;
$20.01 - $35.00 — $5.00; $35.01 - $70.00 — $6.00; over $70.00 — $8.00.
PREPAID ORDERS: All orders under $75 must include payment. INVOICED ORDERS:
Orders over $75 may be invoiced and must be accompanied by a purchase order.
Mail to: National Art Education Association, 1916 Association Drive, Reston,
VA 20191-1590. FAX/PHONE ORDERS using Visa and MasterCard may be faxed to
703-860-2960 or by toll free phone to 800-299-8321 (8:30am to 4pm EST). WEB


VIEWS: 1 PAGES: 2 POSTED ON: 7/6/2011
Classics for Kids Educational Outreach Program Looks Toward the Future Looking toward the future, WXXX is reaching out to the youngest members of our community to ensure that classical music is available and appreciated by the next generation. The station’s award-winning Classics for Kids educational outreach program provides a dynamic, entertaining and innovative way to introduce children to classical music. Classics for Kids’® unique combination of radio broadcast, interactive website and lesson planning materials bring classical music to life in a way that engages kids and delights adults. Families can tune to Classics for Kids every (day and Time) on (Frequency) WXXX. Hosted by Naomi Lewin, Classics for Kids® focuses on a different composer each month, with each week’s program highlighting a different aspect of that composer’s life and work. Naomi Lewin uses music accessible to children to tell the composer’s story, illustrate a musical concept and pique a child’s interest. Weekly topics may include the composer’s life, a trip through the music and its instrumentation, an explanation of the musical form, the story behind the piece or interesting connections between composers. The Classics for Kids multimedia-learning center at (station website) provides an additional interactive experience where kids learn about music while playing games, listening to classical music, learning about composers and hearing how the instruments of the orchestra sound. The site’s features include four multimedia games, an interactive musical dictionary, an audio archive of radio programs, downloadable activity sheets, and audio files of favorite classical music. The website also hosts both a parent and teacher resource section. Parents will find tips and advice for young musicians, reading lists, and suggestions for musically oriented videos and video games. The site’s teacher resource center helps educators integrate classical music into their daily curriculum and further their educational goals. Lesson plans, which are based on National Standards for the Arts, state academic standards and Multiple Intelligence Learning Theory, can be downloaded from the program’s website. Each set of plans is built around a classical music composer and a featured piece of music and can be used not only by music teachers but also for instruction of language arts, math, science and social studies. Teachers can access these materials, including overviews of the Orff and Kodaly teaching methods, and integrate the lessons into their classroom at their own convenience. The benefits of music education are well known. Children do gain enormously through the study of classical music. Not only do they use their minds better; they also learn to think creatively, imagining solutions to problems that are “out of the box.” Youngsters who play instruments discover the rewards that come after hard work produces a successful performance. Those who belong to an orchestra develop discipline, a respect for others and learn to work as a team. Audience members gain insight into different cultures. All are exposed to the incomparable. WXXX believes every child deserves the opportunity to listen to and learn about great music. Classics for Kids® is a fun, friendly, exciting exploration of music – and adults love it too! Make classical music a part of your family’s everyday life and reap the rewards. Tune to (Station Frequency) for Classics for Kids® every (day and time) or visit Classics for Kids® at (station website) and see for yourself.
Pages to are hidden for
"CFK_EducationalOutreach"Please download to view full document


This project will provide instruments, materials and supplies so that 5,000 inner-city children in NYC can participate in music-making within an engaging classroom environment. In 2014-15, ETM is launching new programs at 12 inner-city schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. These kids will be attending music class for the first time, and it is vital that they have access to materials and instruments to experience the benefits of music education such as creativity and innovative thinking.
What is the issue, problem, or challenge?
5,000 disadvantaged children in 12 NYC schools (located in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens) will be receiving music education for the first time during 2014-15, but their schools do not have any materials and supplies for the new music classroom. We are also identifying new partner schools for 2015-16, and they will have brand-new needs.
How will this project solve this problem?
This project will support the purchase of instruments and educational materials for first-year partner schools. Needed instruments include xylophones, drums, and clarinet reeds. Based on success at other ETM partners, we want to outfit the music classroom with a wide variety of instruments to help students remain focused and engaged, with instrument parts so that all are working instruments to help students apply musical skills, and with crucial musical accompaniment.
Potential Long Term Impact
With these instruments and supplies, the music teachers can create a learning-friendly environment for these students, and provide instruction that will support learning in music, critical thinking, and general development like self-esteem and motivation. Your support will give teachers the tools to create engaging lessons and make the new music program an unforgettable experience for 5,000 students.
Total Funding Received to Date: $2,218
Remaining Goal to be Funded: $22,782
Total Funding Goal: $25,000


Please note: You are viewing an archived Bucknell University news story. It is possible that information found on this page has become outdated or inaccurate, and links and images contained within are not guaranteed to function correctly.
[X] Close this message.
LEWISBURG, Pa. — Bucknell University will host a Science and Engineering Education Fair Wednesday, Nov. 28, from 7 to 9 p.m. in Larison Hall at Bucknell.
The event will involve a demonstration of basic principles of science and involves 50 teams of first-year engineering students partnered with nine teams of third-year elementary education students.
Professor Margot Vigeant, associate professor of chemical engineering, explained that the goal of the team assignment is to "illustrate concepts such as conservation of mass, momentum, and energy."
Although the fair is open to the general public, the target audience is those who teach elementary and middle school science. Scout leaders, club advisers, home schoolers, and Odyssey of the Mind coaches are also encouraged to attend.
Gizmos and computer simulations
As part of a required course for engineers, students have designed and created gizmos and computer simulations illustrating basic principles of science and engineering. Participants can browse through each of the gizmos, see them in action, and have the opportunity to take a gizmo back to their classroom.
Using these gizmos, students in Professor Lori Smolleck's Teaching Elementary Science course have designed corresponding inquiry-based units that are aligned with state and national standards. Both the gizmos and the corresponding inquiry-based units will be given away to interested participants at the end of the evening. In addition, participants can also receive Act 48 continuing education hours for participating in the fair.
The state standards addressed by the gizmos and learning units are: 3.1.4. (unifying themes); 3.2.4. (inquiry and design); 3.4.4.A (properties of matter); 3.4.4.B (energy types and conversions); 3.4.4.C (forces and motion); 3.6.4.A (biotechnology); 3.6.4.C (construction and design); and 3.7.4.C (computer operations and concepts).
For more information, contact Professor Margot Vigeant at 577-1646.
Contact: Office of Communications
Posted Nov. 15, 2007


Introducing your child to music education at a young age offers an incredible array of developmental benefits. more
An adenoidectomy is a surgery to remove the adenoids. Adenoids are small lymph nodes located deep in the back of the throat, behind the nose. They are part of the body's defense against illnesses. Sometimes, the adenoids become problematic and may swell or become infected. If this happens a lot, your child may need to have them removed.
An adenoidectomy is often done at the same time as a tonsillectomy because the same conditions that cause the adenoids to become sore and inflamed often affect the tonsils as well.
Adenoidectomies are performed using general anaesthesia, so your child will be asleep the whole time. To avoid complications during surgery, your child will probably not be able to eat or drink anything for several hours leading up to the surgery. During surgery, your child will be monitored by medical professionals to ensure that his heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing remain stable.
After surgery, your child will be moved to a recovery area where nurses will monitor him until he wakes up. He will probably be cranky and uncomfortable, but should be able to go home the next day.
Your child will probably be sore from the surgery for several days. Give paracetamol for discomfort and offer cool drinks and foods to soothe his throat. Place a pad or towels on the pillow and bed to catch drainage and encourage him to sleep on his side to avoid choking from blood and fluid discharge.
When to call the doctor
If your child develops a high fever, excess bloody drainage, or continued pain, he may have an infection. Call your doctor for advice.
Related common surgeries in children:
- Hip dysplasia
- Tear duct obstruction
- Tied tongue
- Umbilical hernia repair
- Undescended testicle repair
Written by Rebecca Stigall for Kidspot, Australia's parenting resource for family health . Sources include Better Health Channel, NSW Health, and Health Insite.
Last revised: Wednesday, 7 January 2015
This article contains general information only and is not intended to replace advice from a qualified health professional.
- Outsmarting the super nit
- 7 ways to stay active with your kids this summer
- 7 ways to keep your kids cool this summer
- Germ busting your toddler
- How to really clean your house
- Simple stress busters for busy families
- 10 delish juices and smoothies for healthy living
- Why marriage is good for you
- Six secrets of active families
- Top tips to improve your family's health and happiness


Promote Reading, Writing, and Patience With an Old Fashioned Penpal
The world is all about right now. My life feels so frantic sometimes, and it's because our society's expectations are all about now, fast, faster, NOW! But most things that are worthwhile take time. Learning to read takes time; learning to write takes time; and sometimes the best way to support literacy development is patiently.
A long-term project like writing to a penpal is a great way to consistently work on reading and writing. Using real paper, stamps, and envelopes, children can work on these skills in a genuine way. They will work on writing and handwriting skills while crafting their letters, read for fun and information while reading the letters their penpals send them, and further develop and deepen a friendship through correspondence.
Here are some tips to make writing to a penpal a breeze:
● Choose a penpal who is about your child's age with at least some similar interests. Kids need to feel a connection to get the conversation going. If that isn't possible, have your child write letters to family -- the benefit to that is you know Grandma will write back asap!
● You can go global or local. If your child doesn't have any friends far from home, s/he can always send letters to a buddy across town.
● If writing letters is too daunting a task, try postcards!
● Have some fun stationery and stickers on hand.
● Have your child practice how to address an envelope in pencil before trying it in pen.
● Use fun stamps. I have Harry Potter stamps that make everyone want to write more letters!
● A typed letter might be neater, but nothing is more personal and precious than a handwritten one. Encourage your children to hand write their letters by making sure they have good pencils, erasers, and a special place to write them.
Do your children have penpals? Tell us about your experience with them on the Scholastic Parents Facebook page!


ReadWriteThink couldn't publish all of this great content without literacy experts to write and review for us. If you've got lessons plans, videos, activities, or other ideas you'd like to contribute, we'd love to hear from you.
Find the latest in professional publications, learn new techniques and strategies, and find out how you can connect with other literacy professionals.
Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
|5th - 6th||7th - 8th|
|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
A Collaboration of Sites and Sounds: Using Wikis to Catalog Protest Songs
|Grades||9 – 12|
|Lesson Plan Type||Standard Lesson|
|Estimated Time||Two 50-minute sessions|
Protest songs serve as a means to combat social ills and cover a wide array of topics, including racism, sexism, poverty, imperialism, environmental degradation, war, and homophobia. This lesson makes a connection to popular culture by asking students to work in pairs to research and analyze contemporary and historic protest songs. After learning about wikis, each pair posts their analysis of the protest songs to a class wiki, adding graphics, photos, and hyperlinks as desired. The class then works together to organize the entries. Finally, students listen to all of the protest songs and add information and comments to each other’s pages.
This lesson works well with a unit focusing on a piece of literature in which a character(s) actively fights for social, political, or economic justice. For example, this lesson can build on a discussion of the issues that Atticus Finch contends with in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Protest Songs: This list from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty includes protest songs on a variety of topics from a variety of artists.
Protest Song Lyrics Research Guide: students can use this handout to research the lyrics to a protest song, including the song's historical significance and its contemporary connections.
Group Participation Assessment Sheet: Use this rubric to assess students' group participation for any group project.
Meeks and Austin cite group interaction as the catalyst for literacy development. They demonstrate how collaborative projects enable and empower students to learn. This lesson employs the collaborative classroom strategies found in their book, and then extends students' collaborative efforts to a collaborative digital writing space, the wiki.
The open-editing function of wikis leads not only to collaboration, but also to re-conceptualizations of authorship and readership functions. In the democratic world of wikis, its readers also take on the roles of writer, editor, monitor, and arbitrator. By introducing wiki construction and maintenance, this lesson can lead students to a critical analysis of the new spaces in which they read, write, and think.
Meeks, Lynn Langer and Carol Jewkes Austin. 2003. Literacy in the Secondary English Classroom: Strategies for Teaching the Way Kids Learn. Pearson.
Hicks, Troy. "Exploring Copyright through Collaborative Wiki Writing." Classroom Notes Plus 26.2 (October 2008): 7-15
Miller, Nora. 2005. "Wikipedia and the Disappearing ‘Author.'" Etc.: A Review of General Semantics 62.1: 37-40.


CORE Teaching Reading Sourcebook Correlations
CORE’s Teaching Reading Sourcebook, Updated 2nd Edition helps educators implement the Common Core State Standards.
The five components of research-based literacy instruction outlined in the Teaching Reading Sourcebook, Updated 2nd Edition help integrate the Common Core State Standards in English language arts. The Updated 2nd Edition contains New Common Core information, cross-references, and graphic explanations to demonstrate how the sourcebook correlates to the following standards:
- Reading: Foundational Skills (Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, Phonics & Word Recognition, Fluency)
- Language (Conventions of Standard English, Vocabulary Acquisition and Use)
- Reading: Literature
- Reading: Informational Text
For details about how the Teaching Reading Sourcebook, Updated 2nd Edition correlates the standards click the following link:


For my final report I chose a library article title, "Creativity in Digital Art Education Teaching Practices," by Johanna Black. This was an interesting article that promoted creative digital methods in the art classroom. This article touched mainly on two parts. How to get the teacher who grew up without digital technology training to approach digital technology and what the best approaches are that facilitate student creativity. I'm going to try and summarize what this article said about these subjects.
Since the No Student Left Behind Act passed while Bush was in office, art teachers are dealing with 21% decrease in funding and 19% decrease in instruction time. Along with lack in resources as the country goes through a recession. Art teachers are faltering when it comes to incorporating digital technology in the art classroom. This creates a disconnect between the students and teacher. This article refers to the new generation at "screenagers", which I believe is fitting. In a world that is changing rapidly, it's important for teachers to try and keep pace. There is an apparent gap between the art teacher, who sees incorporating more technology as more effort, time and possibly money on their side and the art world who is promoting creative digital technology use whole heartily. When teachers don't incorporate technology they are detrimenting their student's learning and ability to self express. Teaching students digital technology should be an art creativity tool and not only a presentation tool. What this article found the most was that art teachers weren't approaching technology in a creative manner. They believed that it should be a collaboration between the students and the teacher to discover the creative possibilities with in digital technology.
Teachers need to learn how to teach a creative digital process. Where the basic traditional design elements can be at the root of the projects. It is possible to teach with technology without completely changing their art pedagogy. They don't need to know all about the software to teach it. Through the creative process, it's likely that most of this will happen naturally. The projects should be more then just learning a new software, they should be about harnessing creativity through the digital creative process. Art making should always be the main objective. If art teachers focused more on this aspect and not on the time they may need to put in to learn about a software, it could be fun! Also, this article did a study and found that more open ended projects were best when learning to use digital technology. This way it's not about learning to use a certain tool, but using the tool to create something that has self expression and meaning. By embracing new technologies it will give self confidence not only to the teachers but to the students.
Overall, I thought that this was a great article that did a good job of articulating the importance of creativity in technology. I know it can be easy to get frustrated and loose sight of the goal when learning a new program. Yet, if we look past that and focus on creating, it is well worth everyone's while. I think that all art teachers should read this article to get perspective on their teaching methods and to meet and surpass their students creativity needs. This is a very relevant topic in the new digital age we are living in. It's time for art educators to embrace it, no matter their age or training!
Black, Joanna. "Creativity in Digital Art Education Teaching Practices." Art Education. 64.5 (2011): 19-4. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.