Jeff Piontek is an author, keynote speaker and teacher (most importantly). He has worked with many at-risk school districts nationally and is a thought leader in on-line and blended learning.
In anticipation of our third annual Student Editorial Contest (to be announced on Feb. 25), we’ve done the math, and below you’ll find the 100 most-commented-upon questions we’ve ever asked that call for persuasive writing.
Many of them are, of course, on topics teenagers care about — technology, video games, sports and gender issues. Others are classic debate issues like government regulation and gun violence.
But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the broad topic that seems to engage students the most? School — from questions about homework to cheating, bad report cards, bullying and gym class.
So skim the list and pick issues that interest you. Each question is linked to a related Times article, which you can access free, and includes additional subquestions to help you flesh out your ideas.
Our 100 Most Popular Student Questions for Debate and Argumentative Writing
“I Forgot My Phone” | Does technology make us more alone?
Are the Web Filters at Your School Too Restrictive?
Does Technology Make Us More Alone?
How Should Parents Handle a Bad Report Card?
Should Middle School Students Be Drug Tested?
Is Cheating Getting Worse?
Do Violent Video Games Make People More Violent in Real Life?
Do We Give Children Too Many Trophies?
Should Students Be Able to Grade Their Teachers?
Should Schools Put Tracking Devices in Students’ ID Cards?
If Football Is So Dangerous to Players, Should We Be Watching It?
Should Video Games Be Considered a Sport?
Do Teachers Assign Too Much Homework?
Does Technology Get in the Way of Learning?
What Is More Important: Our Privacy or National Security?
Should Stores Sell Violent Video Games to Minors?
Is a Healthier School Lunch Program a Lost Cause?
How Young Is Too Young for an iPhone?
Is Cheerleading a Sport?
Should the School Day Start Later?
Should Racial Epithets Be Removed From ‘Huck Finn’?
Should Schools Offer Cash Bonuses for Good Test Scores?
Can Money Buy You Happiness?
Should Women Be Allowed to Fight on the Front Lines Alongside Men? And, Should They Be Required to Register for the Draft?
Is There Too Much Pressure on Girls to Have ‘Perfect’ Bodies?
Should the Private Lives of Famous People Be Off Limits?
Is School Teaching You the Skills You’ll Need to Succeed in Life?
What Current Musicians Will Stand the Test of Time?
What Words or Phrases Are Overused and Should Go Away?
Can Cellphones Be Educational Tools?
Is School Designed More for Girls Than Boys?
Do Kids Need Recess?
What Time Should Black Friday Sales Start?
Do Photoshopped Images Promote Unrealistic Expectations of Beauty and Body Image?
What Should Be Done to Stop Cyberbullying?
When Should You Feel Guilty for Killing Zombies?
How Should We Prevent Future Mass Shootings?
Is It Unethical for Zoos to Kill Healthy Animals Under Their Care?
Is a Longer School Calendar a Good Idea?
Which Is More Important: Talent or Hard Work?
Should Couples Live Together Before Marriage?
Is Home-Schooling Better Than a Traditional Education?
Is Prom Worth It?
Do Students Learn Best When They Direct Their Own Education?
Should Reading and Math Be Taught in Gym Class Too?
Should Schools Be Allowed to Use Corporal Punishment?
How Young Is Too Young to Date? (Or, Is Dating a Thing of the Past?)
Do You Trust Your Government?
Are Children of Illegal Immigrants Entitled to a Public Education?
Should the Government Limit the Size of Sugary Drinks?
Has Facebook Lost Its Edge?
Should Tablet Computers Become the Primary Way Students Learn in Class?
How Necessary Is a College Education?
How Well Do You Think Standardized Tests Measure Your Abilities?
Are Some Youth Sports Too Intense?
Should Texting While Driving Be Illegal in Every State?
Can Graffiti Ever Be Considered Art?
Whose Fault Is It if a Child Is Failing in School?
Should the Dropout Age Be Raised?
Should a College Education Be Free?
Should People Be Allowed to Obscure Their Identities Online?
Does Class Size Matter?
Should Marijuana Be Legal?
Should You Feel Guilty About Killing Spiders, Ants or Other Bugs?
Does Classroom Technology Enhance What and How Students Learn? Or, Does It Get in the Way of Learning?
Should Parents Let Their Children Play Football?
When Is the Use of Military Force Justified?
Do Parents Have Different Hopes and Standards for Their Sons Than for Their Daughters?
Do Leaders Have Moral Obligations?
Should All Police Officers Wear Body Cameras?
Does Separating Boys and Girls Help Students Perform Better in School?
Is It Ethical to Eat Meat?
Is Smoking Still a Problem Among Teenagers?
Do Laws That Ban Offensive Words Make the World a Better Place?
Is TV Too White? And, What About Movies?
Is It O.K. to Refuse to Serve Same-Sex Couples Based on Religious Beliefs?
Should Parents Limit How Much Time Children Spend on Tech Devices?
Would You Feel Safer With Armed Guards Patrolling Your School?
Should You Go to Jail for Kicking a Cat?
Should Home-Schoolers Be Allowed to Play Public School Sports?
Is It Offensive for Sports Teams to Use Native American Names and Mascots?
Should Students Be Barred From Taking Cellphones to School?
How Important Is Arts Education?
Should the United States Stop Using the Death Penalty?
Is It O.K. for Men and Boys to Comment on Women and Girls on the Street?
Should Students Be Allowed to Skip Senior Year of High School?
Would You Trade Your Paper Books for Digital Versions?
Have Curse Words Become So Common They Have Lost Their Shock Value?
Should College Football Players Get Paid?
Are High School Students Being Worked Too Hard?
When Do You Become an Adult?
Does Reality TV Promote Dangerous Stereotypes? Or, Does It Ever Actually Do Some Good?
Should Colleges Find a Better Way to Admit Students?
How Should Parents Address Internet Pornography?
Can You Be Good Without God?
Do Our Neighborhoods Define Who We Are?
Does Life Exist — or Has It Ever Existed — Somewhere Besides Earth?
Should Computer Games Be Used for Classroom Instruction?
Should Companies Collect Information About Us?
Should You Care About the Health and Safety of Those Making Your Clothing?
Should We Rethink How Long Students Spend in High School?
One thing leads to another.
Teaching English
And so it was for me as a teacher. Being an English teacher—that is, a teacher of literature, the writing process, grammar, critical thinking, close reading, decoding, digital media, speaking and listening, and well you get the idea—was a very plaid experience—all divergent and striped and blocked and geometric but still somehow stitched together.
Oddly, elegantly unified.
As curriculum and content, “English” is really a matter of understanding communication—who said what, how did they say it, and how can you use similar patterns to say things yourself? Diction, tone, grammar, theme, thesis statements, mood, structure, idea organization, supporting details, main idea, literary devices, and dozens of other things are all pieces in service of communication—both sending and receiving.
For some reason, once you get to college, communication is chunked into a matter of public speaking, but that’s like teaching “shapes” independent of geometry. Speaking is first a matter of knowing.
So traditionally in English you take a close look at dead people that said noteworthy things, literature being “news that stays news.” You take apart what they said, try to understand why they said it, and write a paper or take a test on it. Franz Kafka, Robert Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Emily Dickinson, and countless other people that have lived but not anymore at one point were moved to say something, wrote it down, and here we are centuries later bubbling in scantrons about it all. It’s a bit weird.
But studying their poetry and speeches and novels and other recorded and highly formatted musings led me to see it all as a matter of purpose and audience. Every time we study a piece of literature, or the concept of writing, it was the same pattern.
What was said, and to whom?
The Order Of Thinking
This came in handy when I started taking a look at digital media and other technology in service of the study of English-Language Arts curriculum. A YouTube video, like a poem, has the same fundamental characteristics, just different modalities–word choice, structure, idea organization, tone, and the other bits that connote academic study. But each also has an audience and a purpose—and without understanding the audience and purpose, none of the other stuff makes sense.
You can’t evaluate the word choice of a poem until you have some kind of idea why it was written—and who it was written for (if anyone). The context. You can speculate all day long about what he or she said and how he or she said it, but you’re only speculating. You weren’t there.
You can analyze the meter or count the lines, but the poem itself is a conjuring born of audience and purpose—which makes it a nearly human thing itself. Something was said to someone for some reason, and everything works backwards from there.
Audience and purpose are primal. They have to come first or none of it makes any sense. And so it goes with pedagogy. Who are you teaching, and why? Who exactly, and why exactly?
When students start on projects for project-based learning, have them start with audience and purpose. What are you doing and why are you doing it? And for whom?
The same with ed reform. How can we revise a school or iterate education until we know what a school is supposed to do or what an “education” is? That’s purpose.
And most critically, who we’re doing this all for. Who is the “audience” of education? We don’t do this for curriculum or standards or test makers or corporations or universities or even ourselves. We can say it’s the students—so then let’s check that. Let’s look at all of our systems and parts and practices and see if they point to the audience. Or we can start with our audience and work backwards from there.
Understanding audience and purpose is critical for reading and writing. And project-based learning. And digital media. And ed reform. And pretty much everything else. The sequence of education itself begins with audience and purpose. So let’s start there, too.
Who are you teaching, and why?
This article was written by Terry Heick for edutopia, and updated for TeachThought; Audience And Purpose: Who Are You Teaching, And Why? image attribution flickr user tulanepublicrelations
Steve Jobs is a name which is synonymous with cutting edge, innovative and groundbreaking technology.
So it may come as something as a surprise to learn Apple’s former CEO didn’t believe in letting his kids use some of his company’s greatest products – the iPhone and the iPad.
And it’s not because the Apple godhead was a closet Samsung fan either.
Jobs, who died in 2011, may have had an instinctive flair for technology but he was a low tech parent who firmly believed in restricting his children’s access to electronic devices.
“We limit how much technology our kids use at home,” said Jobs way back in 2010, expressing growing concerns about his children’s gadget use.
As all modern parents know, iPhones and iPads are extremely appealing to children. These little hand-held devices are state-of-the-art toys. Surrogate parents almost, capable of entertaining, distracting, and pacifying children during school holidays and on long car journeys when mom and dad’s attentions are focused elsewhere.
Yet instead of thanking Apple for these extremely convenient parent assistants, should we actually be concerned about the potential harm they may be inflicting upon our youngsters?
Steve Jobs certainly appeared to think so. In a New York Times article published this week, journalist Nick Bilton recalls how he once put it to Jobs that his kids must love the iPod, but to his surprise Jobs replied, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
“I’m sure I responded with a gasp and dumbfounded silence. I had imagined the Jobs’s household was like a nerd’s paradise: that the walls were giant touch screens, the dining table was made from tiles of iPads and that iPods were handed out to guests like chocolates on a pillow. Nope, Mr. Jobs told me, not even close.”
And Jobs wasn’t the only technological guru who had substantial concerns about the long-term effects of kids engaging with touch-screen technology for hours on end.
Chris Anderson, former editor of Wired, also believes in setting strict time limits and parental controls on every device at home.
“My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists. They say that none of their friends have the same rules. That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology first hand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles recently published a study which demonstrated that just a few days after abstaining from using electronic gadgets, children’s social skills improved immediately.
Which is definitely food for thought considering recent research showed that an average American child spends more than seven and a half hours a day using smart-phones and other electronic screens.
Jobs was undoubtedly a genius but he didn’t get that way through staring at screens and playing Angry Birds until the early hours or constantly updating his Facebook account.
Walter Isaacson, the author of Steve Jobs, spent a lot of time at the Apple co-founder’s home and confirmed that face-to-face family interaction always came before screentime for Jobs.
“Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things. No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”
So the next time the advertising department at Apple, Samsung, or any other major technological corporation attempt to sublimely convince you that life is somehow lacking without their latest little device, remember that the man who started it all, believed somewhat differently.
Donnell-Kay announces a game changing, multi-year effort to create a new state public education system where learning is reimagined and students graduate energized and equipped to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
ReSchool Colorado intends to improve the experience of education in order to better match and keep pace with the needs and expectations of students living in the 21st century.
Back when public education was first formalized, our lives and economy were more industrialized, based on a model characterized by repetitive routine and infrequent change.
Today, change is the norm and technology’s influence is significant. Digitally, we have access to just about any information, right in our pockets. Kids create music playlists or communicate instantly with the swipe of a finger.
And, it all happens anytime, anywhere.
It is no surprise the educational expectations of students and families have changed—dramatically.
To excel in today’s highly technical world, students require an educational system that adapts quickly to the fluid expectations of society and enables schooling to transcend time and place to better fit the learner.
For our centuries-old system to make this mega-leap forward, we need a game change—a fresh start, rich with new ways of learning.
To enable this much-needed fresh start for Colorado’s education system, the Donnell-Kay Foundation initiated ReSchool Colorado.
ReSchool Colorado’s ultimate goal is to design and implement an education system that pushes the boundaries of current thought and practice to provide an exceptional education for students living in this century, not the 20th century.
At full build-out, the system will serve students statewide and eliminate barriers between the key transition points of early childhood, K-12, higher education, and the workforce.
To do this, we will start small and grow over time. But, the system will not replace the existing Colorado educational system. Instead, it will be developed and operate in parallel with the current systems serving students in ECE, K-12, and higher education. Students and educators will choose to enter the new system at various points: some will migrate from their current path; others will start their education or career within it.
In addition, we hope ReSchool Colorado will inspire others, outside of Colorado, to take similar bold steps to envision their own new system and take action.
This transformation calls for learning and schooling to be reimagined, current policies redesigned, and infrastructure repurposed. Critical attributes of the new system that are beginning to take shape can be seen here. Our goals for the new system are:
The Donnell-Kay Foundation kicked off ReSchool Colorado in 2013, with a Request for Information (RFI) that generated compelling ideas and identified experts suited to help plan the path forward.
Additional input from a variety of sources has resulted in a vision, strategy and timeline beginning to take shape.
Throughout 2014 and 2015, we will invite citizens and experts to inform the design of the new education system, including:
We anticipate completion of the design process by the end of 2015, with policy and implementation strategy starting in 2016.
Join us in transforming the lives of Colorado students through the creation of a vibrant, new education system. Please join our mailing listto stay abreast of ReSchool Colorado.
If you have questions, please contact Amy Berk Anderson, Director of ReSchool Colorado, at ReSchoolColorado@dkfoundation.org.
To learn more, please visit:
Learning Reimagined
Why Now?
Why DK?
Visit Our Work to learn about all current Donnell-Kay Foundation projects.
12 Principles Of Mobile Learning
Ed note: This post has been updated and republished from a 2012 post by Terry Heick
Mobile Learning is about self-actuated personalization.
As learning practices and technology tools change, mobile learning itself will continue to evolve. For 2016, the focus is on a variety of challenges, from how learners access content to how the idea of a “curriculum” is defined. Technology like tablets PCs, apps, and access to broadband internet are lubricating the shift to mobile learning, but a truly immersive mobile learning environment goes beyond the tools for learning to the lives and communities valued by each individual learner.
It is only within these communities that the native context of each learner can be fully understood. Here, in these communities that are both local and digital, a “need to know” is born, knowledge accrues incrementally, progress resonates naturally, and a full picture of each learner as a human being fully emerges.
1. Access
A mobile learning environment is about access to content, peers, experts, portfolio artifacts, credible sources, and previous thinking on relevant topics. It can be actuated via a smartphone or iPad, laptop or in-person, but access is constant–which in turn shifts a unique burden to learn on the shoulders of the student.
2. Metrics
As mobile learning is a blend of the digital and physical, diverse metrics (i.e., measures) of understanding and “performance of knowledge” will be available.
3. Cloud
The cloud is the enabler of “smart” mobility. With access to the cloud, all data sources and project materials are constantly available, allowing for previously inaccessible levels and styles of revision and collaboration.
4. Transparent
Transparency is the natural byproduct of connectivity, mobility, and collaboration. As planning, thinking, performance, and reflection are both mobile and digital, they gain an immediate audience with both local and global communities through social media platforms from twitter to facebook, edmodo to instagram.
5. Play
Play is one of the primary characteristics of authentic, progressive learning, both a cause and effect of an engaged mind. In a mobile learning environment learners are encountering a dynamic and often unplanned set of data, domains, and collaborators, changing the tone of learning from academic and compliant to personal and playful.
6. Asynchronous
Among the most powerful principles of mobile learning is asynchronous access. This unbolts an educational environment from a school floor and allows it to move anywhere, anytime in pursuit of truly entrepreneurial learning. It also enables a learning experience that is increasingly personalized: just in time, just enough, just for me.
7. Self-Actuated
With asynchronous access to content, peers, and experts comes the potential for self-actuation. Here, learners plan topic, sequence, audience, and application via facilitation of teachers who now act as experts of resource and assessment.
8. Diverse
With mobility comes diversity. As learning environments change constantly, that fluidity becomes a norm that provides a stream of new ideas, unexpected challenges, and constant opportunities for revision and application of thinking. Audiences are diverse, as are the environments data is being gleaned from and delivered to.
9. Curation
Apps and mobile devices can not only support curation, but can do so better than even the most caffeine-laced teacher might hope to. By design, these technologies adapt to learners, store files, publish thinking, and connect learners, making curation a matter of process rather than ability.
10. Blending
A mobile learning environment will always represent a blending of sorts–physical movement, personal communication, and digital interaction.
11. Always-On
Always-on learning is self-actuated, spontaneous, iterative, and recursive. There is a persistent need for information access, cognitive reflection, and interdependent function through mobile devices. It is also embedded in communities capable of intimate and natural interaction with students.
12. Authentic
All of the previous 11 principles yield an authenticity to learning that is impossible to reproduce in a classroom. They also ultimately converge to enable experiences that are truly personalized.
• Every two days, mankind creates as much information as it did from the dawn of civilization until 2003.
• The amount of information that an average person is exposed to in a day is the same as a person from the 15th century was exposed to in his lifetime.
• The amount of information generated during the first day of a baby’s life today is equivalent to 70 times the information contained in the Library of Congress.
And you wonder why you’re exhausted?
In The Human Face of Big Data, Rick Smolan, a former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer famous for creating the Day in the Life book series, and author Jennifer Erwitt examine how today’s digital onslaught and emerging technologies can help us better understand and improve the human condition–ourselves, interactions with each other, and the planet.
The 14 x 11-inch, 224-page coffee table book, arriving Dec. 4, employs a collection of images, essays, and articles (including one by yours truly) to explore innovative ways that business, science and medicine, academia, politics, law enforcement, and Hollywood are collecting and utilizing data–such as predicting crime and earthquakes, identifying counterfeit drugs, disease screening, home electricity usage, and understanding animals and nature–while raising questions about data ownership and privacy erosion. The one blissful omission: not a cat video in sight.
“This is the most challenging and satisfying project I’ve ever worked on,” says Smolan. “It’s like watching the planet develop a nervous system. The ability to collect, analyze, triangulate, and visualize vast amounts of data in real time is something the human race has never had before. This new set of tools, or Big Data, is being used to address some of the biggest challenges facing our planet. I hope the book will spark a global conversation about both the tremendous potential for good and the concerns about who owns data that you and I generate.”
The work capitalizes on some of this technology in its narrative. It’s the first coffee table book to utilize the Aurasma mobile app–enabling readers to trigger related video and other content by training their smartphone and tablet cameras on specially marked yellow key icons on some of the pages.
An interactive iPad version of the book will be available down the road, allowing users to interact with multimedia content exemplifying how Big Data addresses some of humanity’s biggest challenges.
Those elements culminate in the Human Face of Big Data project, a series of initiatives begun earlier this fall to spark global conversations about the effect of humanity’s ability to collect and analyze enormous amounts of data in real time. It launched late September with a free mobile app that gleaned a week’s worth of information from some 300,000 participants on how they lived, viewed their lives, and interacted with others with similar digital footprints. The crowdsourced collection of anonymous data will be made available to researchers, data scientists, and educators to study as a data snapshot of a week in the life of humanity in 2012.
On Oct. 2, the project sponsored Mission Control, a simultaneous speaker event in New York, London, and Singapore where tech leaders discussed what the concept meant to them, alongside a networking forum that showcased new startups. On Nov. 17, in conjunction with TEDxYouthDay, it launched the Data Detectives website as the student component of Big Data. Through the end of the year, it will collect answers to questionnaires and real-time data interaction from students in grades 6-12. Like its adult counterpart, that anonymous information will be available for researchers next year, and get young people talking about how new technologies will impact their thinking and expression during their lives.
Smolan, who now lives in his native Manhattan, was working as a photographer in Australia in 1980, when he came up with the idea of a coffee table book that pooled a single day of shots of the country from leading photographers. When Smolan couldn’t find an interested publisher, he asked then-Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, with whom he’d traveled on assignment for Time, for government money. Fraser declined, and instead helped him tap corporate sponsorship. The result, A Day in the Life of Australia, was not only a bestseller in that country, but spawned the bestselling Day in the Life book series that chronicles life in other countries.
“I could barely add up expenses at the end of an assignment, so the idea of me running a company was totally bizarre,” says Smolan. “But because I was turned down by every publisher, I had to learn how to be a publisher.”
In 1989, Smolan and his wife, Jennifer Erwitt–daughter of the
famed photographer Elliott Erwitt–founded Against All Odds Productions to expand their storytelling to other topics and enhance it with emerging digital technology and interactivity. In 1995, Katya Able joined as COO. The projects run about 18 months, employing a global network of some 200 researchers, photographers, writers, illustrators, and designers. Past efforts include 24 Hours in Cyberspace, The Power to Heal: Ancient Arts & Modern Medicine, Passage to Vietnam (exploring that country’s opening up in the early 1990s), and Blue Planet Run (about the global water crisis). America 24/7 broke ground by inviting the public to shoot and submit photos alongside professionals. From Alice to Ocean, chronicling Robyn Davidson’s cross-Australia trek, was the first book to be packaged with a CD-Rom and is now being made into a movie starring Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland).
“All our books have been made possible via sponsorship–no publisher in the world would spend millions of dollars to create a coffee table book. Nowadays, they don’t even want to risk the cost of printing the book,” says Smolan. “Jennifer and Katya are the database, budget, and scheduling queens. Photographers are notoriously independent and difficult to manage. They coordinate the 200+ creative individuals scattered around the globe, making sure the work of one team passes seamlessly to the next. Photographers are notoriously independent and difficult to manage. Jennifer and Katya have the rare skill of being able to herd the cats.”
Smolan initially got the idea for Big Data early last year from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. (“She was the first person to describe Big Data to me in visual terms,” he says.) But the digital universe’s rapid expansion would have rendered a single-day snapshot obsolete by the time the book came out 18 months later. So instead of that type of random sample, Smolan wanted give an overall sense of the impact it was having on the planet.
With the economy reining in publishing money, Smolan once again tapped corporate sponsors: primarily IT solutions provider EMC Corp., with supporting sponsorships from Cisco Systems, VMWare, Tableau Software, Originate, and FedEx (which is delivering 10,000 copies to world leaders and Fortune 500 CEOs) and distributed through Barnes & Noble’s Sterling Books.
“Right now it’s primarily companies and governments who are thinking about the uses of Big Data,” says Smolan. “It’s really important that each of us also thinks about how this is going to affect our lives.”
To illustrate, he tells the story of one of the book’s profiles, Hugo Campos, whose pacemaker wirelessly transmits heart metrics to his physician throughout the day. Campos wanted to correlate pacemaker activity with his exercise, sleep, and diet. But when he asked the device manufacturer for a copy of his medical data, the manufacturer refused, claiming he did not own the data.
Another subject, scientist Craig Venter, is patenting new forms of life. “While these new forms are being designed for human good, it does make you think of unintended consequences, like Frankenstein,” says Smolan. “There are no laws governing this. All this stuff will be set in stone soon by corporations. My worry is that by the time individuals begin thinking about it, it will be too late.”
Click on the slide show for some of the book’s examples of how Big Data is being visualized and applied.
The federal government’s review of Ohio’s original application for the $71 million dollar grant, which was written by the charter leader who resigned, is ongoing. Two federal bills have also been proposed in order to improve oversight for charters.
Bill Phillis, former deputy Commissioner of Education in Ohio, runs the Equity and Adequacy Coalition.
Highway robbery is legal in the Ohio charter industry
The charter industry has been largely deregulated from the beginning. The charter promoters and operators have had unrestrained freedom to use public money recklessly and dumb down educational opportunities for children. This industry is not a part of the common school system but it is a bloated parasite extracting valuable resources from the public system.
It is legal or not illegal in Ohio‘s charter industry:
For a for-profit charter school company to hold title to real estate, furniture, equipment and other tangible assets that were purchased with public money
For a charter school board to pay a company allied with their for-profit management company $700,000 per year rent to house 150 students
For a charter school of 600 students to pay $185,000 in year for marketing and promotion
For an online charter school operator to siphon off funds set aside to educate students to operate other private companies that personally benefit the charter operator
For a charter operation to help subsidize a worldwide religious movement
For charter school board members to serve without being a citizen of the United States
For non-profit charter sponsors and charter school boards to pay outrageously high salaries and benefits that would not be tolerated in the public common school system
For a person with no training or experience in education to operate a charter school
For the presence of nepotism and contractual relationships that would not be tolerated in the public common school system
For a charter operator to buy legislation via obscene levels of political contributions
For charters to spend unlimited amounts of funds on marketing and promotion
For charter operators to operate in the dark and be shielded from public exposure regarding illegal activities
The list goes on and on…
Children in public school districts are being robbed of educational opportunities by the transfer of more than $7 billion from districts to the failed charter industry over the past 15 years; yet, state officials allow this fraud on the public to go on and on and on.
Under pressure from the public, the 131st General Assembly passed legislation that will rein in some of the abuse now authorized by law. But big money from the charter industry, ineptitude of the Ohio Department of Education and the $71 million federal grant to expand charters will work together to fatten this failed industry.
The only hope is for the public common school community and advocates to band together to demand the end of this debacle that has utterly failed.
William Phillis
Ohio E & A
As education continues to evolve, adding in new trends, technologies, standards, and 21st century thinking habits, there is one constant that doesn’t change.
The human brain.
But neuroscience isn’t exactly accessible to most educators, rarely published, and when it is, it’s often full of odd phrasing and intimidating jargon. Worse, there seems to be a disconnect between the dry science of neurology, and the need teachers have for relevant tools, resources, and strategies in the classroom. In regards to the disconnect, we’ll continue to strive to create content that is both expert and accessible, as The Simple Things I Do To Promote Brain-Based Learning In My Classroom
As for the jargon, Judy Willis, teacher, neuroscientist, and consultant has put together an A-Z glossary of relevant neuroscience terms for teachers and administrators to help clarify the jargon. Willis’ writing has been published on edutopia, TeachThought, and Psychology Today, among other sites, and her work in this field has been especially relevant at a time of such great change in education.
The best approach with a list like this is to bookmark and share the page, and comeback to it intermittently. We’ll also add it as its own page later this week.
Baby steps.
41 Neuroscience Terms Every Teacher Should Know
Affective filter
The affective filter an emotional state of stress in children during which they are not responsive to processing, learning, and storing new information. This affective (emotional) filter is in the amygdala, which becomes hyperactive during periods of high stress. In this hyperstimulated state, new information does not pass through the amygdala to reach the higher thinking centers of the brain.
Amygdala
Part of the limbic system in the temporal lobe. The amygdala was first believed to function as a brain center for responding only to anxiety and fear. When the amygdala senses a threat, it becomes overactivated (high metabolic activity as seen by greatly increased radioactive glucose and oxygen use in the amygdala region on PET and fMRI scans). These neuroimaging findings show that when children feel helpless and anxious. When the amygdala is in a state of stress, fear, or anxiety-induced overactivation, new information coming through the sensory intake areas of the brain cannot pass through the amygdala’s affective filter to gain access to the memory circuits.
Axon
This is the tiny fibrous extension of the neuron away from the cell body to other target cells (neurons, muscles, glands).
Brain mapping
Using electrographic (EEG) response over time, brain mapping measures electrical activity representing brain activation along neural pathways. This technique allows scientists to track which parts of the brain are active when a person is processing information at various stages of information intake, patterning, storing, and retrieval. The levels of activation in particular brain regions are associated with the intensity of information processing.
Central Nervous System
This is the portion of the nervous system comprised of the spinal cord and brain.
Cerebellum
This is a large cauliflower-looking structure on the top of the brainstem. This structure is very important in motor movement and motor-vestibular memory and learning.
Cerebral Cortex
This is the outer most layer of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain. The cortex mediates all conscious activity including planning, problem solving, language, and speech. It is also involved in perception and voluntary motor activity.
Cognition
This refers to the mental process by which we become aware of the world and use that information to problem solve and make sense out of the world. It is somewhat oversimplified but cognition refers to thinking and all of the mental processes related to thinking.
Dendrites
Branched protoplasmic extensions that sprout from the arms (axons) or the cell bodies of neurons. Dendrites conduct electrical impulses toward the neighboring neurons. A single nerve may possess many dendrites. Dendrites increase in size and number in response to learned skills, experience, and information storage. New dendrites grow as branches from frequently activated neurons. Proteins called “neurotrophins,” such as nerve growth factor, stimulate this dendrite growth.
Dopamine
A neurotransmitter most associated with attention, decision making, executive function, and reward-stimulated learning. Dopamine release on neuroimaging has been found to increase in response to rewards and positive experiences. Scans reveal greater dopamine release while subjects are playing, laughing, exercising, and receiving acknowledgment (e.g., praise) for achievement.
Executive Functions
Cognitive processing of information that takes place in areas in the prefrontal cortex that exercise conscious control over one’s emotions and thoughts. This control allows for patterned information to be used for organizing, analyzing, sorting, connecting, planning, prioritizing, sequencing, self-monitoring, self-correcting, assessment, abstractions, problem solving, attention focusing, and linking information to appropriate actions.
Functional Brain Imaging (neuroimaging)
The use of techniques such as PET scans and fMRI imaging to demonstrate the structure, function, or biochemical status of the brain. Structural imaging reveals the overall structure of the brain, and functional neuroimaging provides visualization of the processing of sensory information coming to the brain and of commands going from the brain to the body. This processing is visualized directly as areas of the brain that are “lit up” by increased metabolism, blood flow, oxygen use, or glucose uptake. Functional brain imaging reveals neural activity in particular brain regions and networks of connecting brain cells as the brain performs discrete cognitive tasks.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
This type of functional brain imaging uses the paramagnetic properties of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in the blood to demonstrate which brain structures are activated and to what degree during various performance and cognitive activities. During most fMRI learning research, subjects are scanned while they are exposed to visual, auditory, or tactile stimuli; the scans then reveal the brain structures that are activated by these experiences.
Glia
These are specialized cells that nourish, support, and complement the activity of neurons in the brain. Astrocytes are the most common and appear to play a key role in regulating the amount of neurotransmitter in the synapse by taking up excess neurotransmitter.
Graphic Organizers
Diagrams that are designed to coincide with the brain’s style of patterning. In order for sensory information to be encoded (the initial processing of the information entering from the senses), consolidated, and stored, the information must be patterned into a brain-compatible form. Graphic organizers can promote this patterning in the brain when children participate in creating relevant connections to their existing memory circuitry.
Gray Matter
The gray refers to the brownish-gray color of the nerve cell bodies (neurons) of the outer cortex of the brain as compared with white matter, which is primarily composed of supportive cells and connecting tracks. Neurons are darker than other brain matter, so the cortex or outer layer of the brain appears darker gray and is called “gray matter” because neurons are most dense in that layer.
Hippocampus
A ridge in the floor of each lateral ventricle of the brain that consists mainly of gray matter that has a major role in memory processes. The hippocampus takes sensory inputs and integrates them with relational or associational patterns from preexisting memories, thereby binding the information from the new sensory input into storable patterns of relational memories.
Limbic System
This is a group of functionally and developmentally linked structures in the brain (including the amygdala, cingulate cortex, hippocampus, septum and basal ganglia). The limbic system is involved in regulation of emotion, memory, and processing complex socio-emotional communication.
Long-Term Memory
Long-term memory is created when short-term memory is strengthened through review and meaningful association with existing patterns and prior knowledge. This strengthening results in a physical change in the structure of neuronal circuits.
Metacognition
Knowledge about one’s own information processing and strategies that influence one’s learning that can optimize future learning. After a lesson or assessment, when children are prompted to recognize the successful learning strategies they used, that reflection can reinforce the effective strategies.
Myelin
The fatty substance that covers and protects nerves. Myelin is a layered tissue that sheathes the axons (nerve fibers). This sheath around the axon acts like a conductor in an electrical system, ensuring that messages sent by axons are not lost as they travel to the next neuron. Myelin increases the efficiency of nerve impulse travel and grows in layers in response to more stimulation of a neural pathway.
Myelination
The formation of the myelin sheath around a nerve fiber.
Neuronal Circuits
Neurons communicate with each other by sending coded messages along electrochemical connections. When there is repeated stimulation of specific patterns of stimulation between the same groups of neurons, their connecting circuits (dendrites) become more developed and more accessible to efficient stimulation and response. This is where practice (repeated stimulation of grouped neuronal connections in neuronal circuits) results in more successful recall.
Neurons
Specialized cells in the brain and throughout the nervous system that control storage and processing of information to, from, and within the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Neurons are composed of a main cell body, a single major axon for outgoing electrical signals, and a varying number of dendrites to conduct coded information throughout the nervous system.
Neuroplasticity
This refers to the remarkable capacity of the brain to change its molecular, microarchitectural, and functional organization in response to injury or experience. Dendrite formation and dendrite and neuron destruction (pruning) allows the brain to reshape and reorganize the networks of connections in response to increased or decreased use of these pathways.
Neurotransmitters
Brain proteins that are released by the electrical impulses on one side of the synapse (axonal terminal) and then float across the synaptic gap carrying the information with them to stimulate the nerve ending (dendrite) of the next cell in the pathway. Once the neurotransmitter is taken up by the dendrite nerve ending, the electric impulse is reactivated in that dendrite to travel along to the next nerve. Neurotransmitters in the brain include serotonin, tryptophan, acetylcholine, dopamine, and others that transport information across synapses and also circulate through the brain, much like hormones, to influence larger regions of the brain. When neurotransmitters are depleted, by too much information traveling through a nerve circuit without a break, the speed of transmission along the nerve slows down to a less efficient level.
Numeracy
The ability to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts. Children’s concepts of number and quantity develop with brain maturation and experience.
Occipital Lobes (visual memory areas)
These posterior lobes of the brain process optical input among other functions.
Oligodendrocytes
Oligodendrocytes are the glia that specialize to form the myelin sheath around many axonal projections.
Parietal lobes
Parietal lobes on each side of the brain process sensory data, among other functions.
Patterning
Patterning is the process whereby the brain perceives sensory data and generates patterns by relating new information with previously learned material or chunking material into pattern systems it has used before. Education is about increasing the patterns children can use, recognize, and communicate. As the ability to see and work with patterns expands, the executive functions are enhanced. Whenever new material is presented in such a way that children see relationships, they can generate greater brain cell activity (formation of new neural connections) and achieve more successful patterns for long-term memory storage and retrieval.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET scans)
Radioactive isotopes are injected into the blood attached to molecules of glucose. As a part of the brain is more active, its glucose and oxygen demands increase. The isotopes attached to the glucose give off measurable emissions used to produce maps of areas of brain activity. The higher the radioactivity count, the greater the activity taking place in that portion of the brain. PET scanning can show blood flow, oxygen, and glucose metabolism in the tissues of the working brain that reflect the amount of brain activity in these regions while the brain is processing sensory input (information). The biggest drawback of PET scanning is that because the radioactivity decays rapidly, it is limited to monitoring short tasks. fMRI technology does not have this same time limitation and has become the preferred functional imaging technique in learning research.
Prediction
Prediction is what the brain does with the information it patterns. Prediction occurs when the brain has enough information in a patterned memory category that it can find similar patterns in new information and predict what the patterns mean. For example if you see the number sequence 3,6,9,12…,.. you predict the next number will be 15 because you recognize the pattern of counting by threes. Through careful observation the brain learns more and more about our world and is able to make more and more accurate predictions about what will come next. Prediction is often what is measured in intelligence tests. This predicting ability is the basis for successful reading, calculating, test taking, goal- setting, and appropriate social interactions behavior. Successful prediction is one of the best problem-solving strategies the brain has.
Prefrontal Cortex (front, outer parts of the frontal lobes)
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a hub of neural networks with intake and output to almost all other regions of the brain. In the PFC relational, working-memories can be mentally manipulated to become long-term memory and emotions can be consciously evaluated. Executive functions directed by PFC networks respond to input through the highest levels of cognition. These functions include information evaluation, prediction, conscious decision making, emotional awareness and response, organizing, analyzing, sorting, connecting, planning, prioritizing, sequencing, self-monitoring, self-correcting, assessment, abstraction, deduction, induction, problem solving, attention focusing, and linking information to planning and directing actions.
Pruning: Neurons and their connections are pruned (destroyed) when they are not used. In a baby, the brain overproduces brain cells (neurons) and connections between brain cells (synapses) and then starts pruning them back around the age of three. The second wave of synapse formation occurs just before puberty and is followed by another phase of pruning. Pruning allows the brain to consolidate learning by pruning away unused neurons and synapses and wrapping more white matter (myelin) around the neuronal networks more frequently used to stabilize and strengthen their ability to conduct the electrical impulses of nerve- to-nerve communication.
RAD learning
There three main brain systems that are keys to building better brains. The three systems can be referred to as RAD, which is short for Reach and Discover.
Reticular Activating System (RAS)
This lower part of the posterior brain filters all incoming stimuli and makes the “decision” as to what sensory input is attended to or ignored. The main categories that focus the attention of the RAS include novelty (changes in the environment), surprise, danger, and movement.
Rote Memory
This type of memorization is the most commonly required memory task for children in school. This type of learning involves “memorizing,” and soon forgetting, facts that are often of little primary interest or emotional value to the child, such as lists of words. Facts that are memorized by rehearsing them over and over, that don’t have obvious or engaging patterns or connections, are rote memories. Without giving the information context or relationship to children’s lives, these facts are stored in remoter areas of the brain. These isolated bits are more difficult to locate and retrieve because there are fewer nerve pathways leading to these remote storage systems.
Serotonin
A neurotransmitter used to carry messages between neurons. Too little serotonin may be a cause of depression and inattention. Dendritic branching is enhanced by the serotonin secreted by the brain predominantly between the sixth and eighth hour of sleep (non-REM).
Short-Term Memory (working memory)
This memory can hold and manipulate information for use in the immediate future. Information is only held in working memory for about a minute. The working memory span of the mature brain (less in children) is approximately 7-9 chunks of data
Synapse
These gaps between nerve endings are where neurotransmitters like dopamine carry information across the space separating the axon extensions of one neuron from the dendrite that leads to the next neuron in the pathway. Before and after crossing the synapse as a chemical message, information is carried in an electrical state when it travels down the nerve.
Venn diagram
A type of graphic organizer used to compare and contrast information. The overlapping areas represent similarities, and the nonoverlapping areas represent differences.
