A radical new idea is turning schools upside down. 'Flip the Classroom' is based on a simple concept: kids watch podcast video presentations of lecture material on their own time - at home. They then do the 'homework' at school, in an environment where the teachers can guide and support them, instructing on specific points as required. Colorado teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams have been pioneering the technique, and their
Learning4Mastery website is a fount of information on it.
[more inside]
posted by woodblock100
on Nov 28, 2011 -
65 comments
"Pretty much all haikyo that contain items related to the building’s past are interesting. On the odd occasion even empty structures are too. But while memory-filled houses and sorry-looking snake centres are fascinating in their own very different ways, there’s arguably something that little bit special about a long-abandoned school."
An abandoned but perfectly preserved Japanese school.
[more inside]
posted by jbickers
on Sep 28, 2011 -
10 comments
The Challenge of Teaching 9/11 "The events of September 11th are being discussed, taught, and commemorated in high school classrooms throughout the nation this week. And in many of those classrooms, the students are increasingly too young to have many actual memories of their own of that day’s events. I visited two high school classes in the San Francisco Bay Area to see how teachers are approaching the topic, what the students know and don’t know, and how they feel about the events surrounding that day."
‘Who’s Osama bin Laden?’: Teaching 9/11 to Muslim youth
"In the ten years since Sept. 11, many Muslim Americans feel they’ve had to deal with rising discrimination. Those who remember 9/11 at least understand how this started. But there’s a new generation of Muslim Americans who don’t. They were too young in 2001, or they weren’t yet born. But these children aren’t too young to perceive discrimination. At least one local Islamic school is still working through how, exactly, to teach its young students about 9/11."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Sep 9, 2011 -
84 comments
[The principal] strode in front of the astonished student body in December with the $6,000 VGo robot ... "Meet the new electronic Lyndon," the principal announced. "Don't touch him when you pass him in the hall. Give him space. Don't sneak up on him—he doesn't have rear-view mirrors. Let him be like the other kids. Don't ruin it for him. This is Lyndon's only way to be a part of you."
Lyndon Baty's compromised immune system means he can't go to school.
So his robot goes for him. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Aug 8, 2011 -
58 comments
Black and White and Hebrew All Over. The Village Voice profiles the
Hebrew Language Academy, a dual-language charter school in Brooklyn. Is it a rare success story for the big-city ideal of educational innovation simultaneously serving rich and poor communities? A clever way for Jewish New Yorkers to get their kids Hebrew instruction on the states's dime? A little of both?
posted by escabeche
on Aug 8, 2011 -
54 comments
"Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World). Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility."
This, and many other fun activities from The Paideia School of Tampa Bay's
Tea Party Summer Camp.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Jun 15, 2011 -
125 comments
Long-time bullying victim finally snaps: a video of an incident at a Sydney High School has gone viral over the internet three days prior to Australia's
National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence. Police and bullying experts are concerned about the level of online support that the fed-up victim's actions have received after the video, filmed by his miscalculating tormentors, was posted to Youtube (since removed and reposted multiple times). The 16 year-old has been suspended from school, but already has an
online tribute to his actions and thousands of Facebook supporters.
posted by moorooka
on Mar 15, 2011 -
728 comments
The Mindful Eye is a photography community: "We are here to help and inspire each other in the pursuit of our passions, happiness and the unlimited potential of our dreams as photographers and as human beings. We believe that the simple act of sharing your joy with your camera can change the world for the better." It developed from its previous incarnation as Radiant Vista into a fuller, richer site including useful teaching tools such as the
Daily Critique,
Photo of the Week,
Digital Darkroom,
Foundation Concepts, and
much more. I visit the site daily for new content and recommend it to all my photography students as a positive support system as they develop their skills.
[more inside]
posted by bwg
on Feb 10, 2011 -
2 comments
Kelly Williams-Bolar has been sentenced to ten days in prison in a school residency case. The African-American mother of two lives in public housing in Akron, Ohio, and forged court records so that her children could attend a better school in nearby Copley Township. Judge Patricia Cosgrove sentenced her to 10 days in prison, 80 hours of community service, and two years of probation. Ms. Williams-Bolar works as a special education classroom aide, and was working towards a teaching degree. Because of the felony conviction she may no longer be eligible to teach in the state of Ohio.
posted by mmmbacon
on Jan 25, 2011 -
190 comments
On MLK Day, Some Thoughts on Segregated Schools, Arne Duncan, and President Obama "American schools are more segregated by race and class today than they were on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, 43 years ago. The average white child in America attends a school that is 77 percent white, and where just 32 percent of the student body lives in poverty. The average black child attends a school that is 59 percent poor but only 29 percent white. The typical Latino kid is similarly segregated; his school is 57 percent poor and 27 percent white."
posted by Fizz
on Jan 17, 2011 -
55 comments
openculture.com is offering hundreds of links to free online courses from the top universities in the United States (and Oxford).
posted by gman
on Jan 12, 2011 -
16 comments
A longitudinal study to be published in Jan 2011's Pediatrics (
abstract,
PDF of article) shows that GLBT youth are about 40 percent more likely to be punished by schools, police, and courts than their straight peers.
[more inside]
posted by hippybear
on Dec 7, 2010 -
27 comments
Sam Hengel, a 15-year-old student at Marinette High School in Wisconsin, held a classroom of 23 students and a teacher hostage on Monday, November 28th. Without making any demands from police, Hengel released the hostages and shot himself. Early Tuesday morning, Hengel died in the hospital. (
1,
2)
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posted by MHPlost
on Nov 30, 2010 -
95 comments
The Complaints Choir phenomenon, started by the Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, has
spread all over the world since
last we paid it any attention, from
Birmingham to
Helsinki,
Hamburg,
St. Petersburg,
Poikkilaakso,
Bodø,
Penn State,
Canada,
Juneau,
Gabriola Island,
Sointula,
Jerusalem,
Melbourne,
Budapest,
Malmö,
Chicago,
Florence,
Copenhagen,
Vancouver (
2),
Philadelphia,
Sundbyberg,
Milano,
Åland,
Hong Kong,
Tokyo,
Rotterdam,
Basel,
Umeå,
Ljubljana,
Gdansk,
Arizona State University,
Washington, DC,
Horace Mann School,
Durham-Chapel Hill,
Auckland,
Toronto theatre students,
Kortrijk,
Cairo (
2),
St. Pölten,
Maribor,
Port Coquitlam,
Ústí nad Labem,
Columbus &
Kauhajoki (
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8). For more information, including a
9 step guide to forming your own complaints choir, go to the
Complaints Choir website. Finally, here's the
Singapore Complaints Choir, whose performance was banned by the Singapore government.
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 19, 2010 -
40 comments
''I don't think it's appropriate they feel discriminated against, and I'm very upset they feel that,'' "After inviting friends to her home for ''pre-drinks'', [Hannah Williams] stood on her doorstep and watched her classmates file into the darkness to attend one of the highlights of the school year. Instead of joining them, Hannah took off her heels and black dress and went to bed...A few weeks earlier a teacher had told the year 11 student she couldn't attend the dance with her 15-year-old girlfriend, Savannah Supski. She was asked to bring a male instead."
posted by rodgerd
on Nov 10, 2010 -
70 comments
Want to know what your old high school is doing to protect and support its LGBTQ students?
Write Your Principal encourages and collects correspondence about anti-bullying efforts between alumni and their alma maters. [via
projects]
posted by lalex
on Oct 18, 2010 -
17 comments
What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince? Six teens remained charged--
down from the original nine--in the death of Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide after
bullying at school. Legal writer Emily Bazelon of Slate.com continues her investigation of the case with a new three part series:
I've wrestled with how much of this information to publish. Phoebe's family has suffered terribly. But when the D.A. charged kids with causing Phoebe's death and threatened them with prison, she invited an inquiry into other potential causes. The whole story is a lot more complicated than anyone has publicly allowed for. [more inside]
posted by availablelight
on Jul 20, 2010 -
103 comments
