I read an article by Motoko Rich in the August 29, 2009 issue of The New York Times that talks about the future of reading.  Rich writes about Lorrie McNeill, a middle school teacher in Jonesboro, Georgia who last fall turned over the reading assignments for her seventh and eighth graders to the students themselves.

Rich states that the approach, called reading workshop, is catching on throughout America’s public schools as a way to teach students how to enjoy reading rather than forcing them to read traditional tomes such as Toni Morrison’s  Beloved or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a selection that McNeill used to require her students to read.  Selected school districts in Chicago, Seattle, and New York are employing similar tactics, according to Ms. Rich.  At the same time, she states that none are going as far as Ms. McNeill who attended a seminar in Atlanta taught by Nancy Atwell.  Atwell and Lucy M. Calkins at Columbia University’s Teachers College have emerged as “gurus” of the reading workshop movement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whenever I can find a good book or research paper on the topic of distance education, I will usually obtain a copy in order to see if there’s a trend or idea that is worth noting or pursuing.  For a few weeks, I had noted the ad in The Chronicle of Higher Education touting their new report, “The College of 2020:  Students.”  I had to pay for the report, so I’m sure that the Chronicle wouldn’t like it if I provided a blow-by-blow description of its contents.  However, I think that they would not mind someone touting the report on their blog, so my thoughts are summarized below.  (Those interested in purchasing the report can do so at the following site:  http://research.chronicle.com/asset/TheCollegeof2020ExecutiveSummary.pdf.)  

Chronicle Research Services released the first of a three part report last month that describes the characteristics they predict that we will see in college graduates of the class of 2020.  The fundamental themes of the report are that as the class of 2020 (today’s first graders) enter their college years, their demands on colleges and universities will be drastically different from what students have previously expected, forcing higher educational institutions to reconsider their curriculums, formats, and basic characteristics.

Read the rest of this entry »

McKinsey & Company released a report in April of this year titled, “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools.”  The report identifies four aspects of the achievement gap in American schools: the international achievement gap, the racial achievement gap, the income achievement gap, and system-based achievement gaps.  The findings in the report are striking in their sense of urgency and are worth discussing.

The authors state that “the United States lags significantly behind other advanced nations in educational performance and is slipping further behind on some important measures.”  An interesting element of this particular analysis is that this international disparity in educational achievement affects every American student equally, regardless of race, income, or location.  Citing research published by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the authors provide some discouraging statistics.  For example, “American 15-year-olds are on par with students in Portugal and the Slovak Republic, rather than with students in countries that are more relevant competitors for service-sector and high-value jobs like Canada, the Netherlands, Korea and Australia.”  Additionally, the report finds that whereas 40 years ago, the United States was a world leader in high school graduation rates, today it ranks 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in this category.  Further, the report’s findings reveal that low-income students in the United States fare significantly worse than low-income students in other industrialized nations in educational attainment.

Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Department of Education released the findings of a meta-analysis conducted by its Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development on Friday that confirm what online educators have known for years: “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” 

Online education has gained tremendous momentum in the last several years.  A November 2008 report titled, “Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008” published by the Sloan Consortium notes that during the fall 2007 semester, some 3.9 million students were taking at least one course online, representing a twelve percent increase over the previous year.  During the same semester, twenty percent of all college students were taking at least one course online.  An Eduventures report from November 2006 predicted this growth; that report found that half of the 2,000 potential students surveyed indicated that they would be interested in completing a degree online.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week represents National Teacher Appreciation Week and if there was ever an appropriate time to applaud the efforts of our nation’s teachers, it is now.  Considering the well-publicized and overwhelming reality of our nation’s fiscal concerns, there can be little doubt that the nation’s leadership faces an arduous task.  The nation’s teachers, however, have arguably an even greater and more daunting task: preparing our youngest minds for the uncertain future that lies ahead of them. 

A 2006 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau states that there are 6.8 million teachers in the United States, approximately one-third of them teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels (the other two-thirds teach at preschool, kindergarten or college levels).  According to the Census Bureau report, teachers in Connecticut enjoyed the largest salaries in the nation, an average of $57,300, while teachers in South Dakota earned only $33,200 per year, the lowest in the nation.  The national average teacher salary in 2006 was $46,800.  Considering the importance of the job the nation’s teachers perform, such striking salary discrepancies are disappointing.  The recent budget crises in most states don’t offer much hope that teacher salaries will improve in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, my wife and I were at a friend’s house and he showed us an electronic device called FlashMaster.  His daughter was having trouble with her math facts and her fifth grade teacher recommended that her parents purchase one of these devices.  I liked it as well and purchased one for my daughters.

Chuck Resor of Jackson Hole, Wyoming invented FlashMaster after becoming frustrated with other educational technologies.   The short biography provided on the FlashMaster website states that Chuck’s most relevant qualification for inventing the product is that he is a parent himself who also struggled with how to most effectively supplement the math training his own children received.  He hired an engineering firm to craft his concept and a Chinese manufacturing firm to build it.  The gadget is a little bigger than a Nintendo DS and probably not as much fun.  However, for those of you who think that today’s elementary school programs do not teach the basic fundamentals of math (math facts) and whose children do not respond well to flash cards, this is the tool for you.

FlashMaster comes with an instruction booklet; but it is written for teachers and parents.  On the front page, the guide recommends that the device be handed to children to learn as much as they can about how it works without reading the directions.  There are nine levels each of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  You can set the level of difficulty for each as well as the time that you want to answer all thirty questions at each level.  The problem is displayed on a screen and you type in the keys corresponding to the numeric answer.  If you get an answer wrong, a little beep is registered and the question is automatically stored for a review at the end.  You can also change the format of your question from straightforward (1+2 = ?) to (? + 2 = 3) or (1 + ? = 3).  At the highest level and the shortest time, you really have to know your math facts to answer thirty multiplication and division questions correctly.  There’s even a memory function that allows the student or the student’s teacher or parents to review which questions the student missed while using Flashmaster. 

Our girls enjoy using the device and challenge each other with how many questions they could answer correctly in a sixty second, 150 second, or 180 second time period.   I am confident that they will improve their math facts while playing with the Flashmaster.  I am not related to Chuck, do not know Chuck, and do not have a financial relationship with Chuck.  Chuck, many thanks for inventing this device.  I wish that I had.  I think it is one of the best tools for improving basic math skills and I think we need millions of them in America, particularly in elementary classrooms.