Working Breakout Session

• How can we better prepare students for the literacy demands post secondary?
• Not involving our kids in their own education, they are not responsible for their learning.
• Not enough critical thinking, high level problem solving in the K-12 classroom.  How do we facilitate that in the classroom?
• Classroom management is an issue.
• Professional Development is a great need.  Pre-service training for new teachers needs to improve.
• Relevancy in math and science classes needs to be improved and addressed.
• Allow students to drive more of the content.
• Does the teacher wearing too many hats take away from quality instruction?
• Assessment requirements take away from true learning/quality learning.
• How can we make assessment relevant?
  • formative assessments
  • e-portfolios
  • performance assessments

• Community involvement is important
• Parent empowerment to be a part of the educational process; matching professional development for parents
• Moving from a traditional report card to a standards based report card?
• Place greater funding and emphasis on teacher effectiveness.
• Public doesn’t understand the need that exists
• Communication across government, school, and other public stages need to increase
• How do we maintain sustained student interest in learning?
  • global communication/collaboration
  • empowering them by celebrating their creation of new knowledge
  • creating student centered environments
• Concern about losing a large proportion of kids interested in science/math as early as late elementary/MS up through post-secondary.  Does the system defeat itself through staunch assessments and a critical value system?
• Expose students to role models and careers; as well as a support system to encourage them to stay in the STEM programs.
• Middle school years are critical as far as career development plans.
• High expectations and encouraging students in their abilities
• What can we do to prevent losing kids from the STEM areas?
  • professional development
  • stimulating students to become critical thinkers, life long learners, solution finders, risk takers
  • content through experience/experimentation

Susan Patrick – CEO, North American Council for Online Learning

• focus on K-12 virtual schools and online learning
• opens access for students and teachers
• more and more jobs these days are focused on online telecommuting and flexible schedules
• Singapore – 100% of their systems have online learning – online is blended with the traditional program
• mentioned the Partnership for 21st Century Skills‘ 6 key elements of 21st Century Learning (*21st century assessments must match the 21st century skills)
• Sharing Research to Inform Policy
  • Online learning expands options
  • Online learning is growing rapidly
  • Online learning is equal or better in effectiveness
  • Online learning improves teaching (although a lot of training is needed)
• Michigan April 2006 first state to require online learning
• the US spends more per pupil on education than any other nation (besides Switzerland), yet we are not seeing results
• “Silent Epidemic” study by the Gates Foundation on high school drop outs
  • 88% had passing grades
  • 69% were not motivated to work hard
  • 66% would’ve worked harder had they been challenged
  • 81% called for more real world opportunities
• Millenials:
  • Kids spend more time online than they do watching television
  • see information as free
  • like to collaborate virtually and face to face
  • 96% say doing well in school is important in their lives
  • children are much more involved in decision making at home
• Cyberinfrastructure – integrates hardware for computing, data and networks, digitally-enabled sensors, observatories and experimental facilities, and an interoperable suite of software and middleware services and tools.
• simulation-based engineering
• Examples:
  • Micro Observatory Online Telescope at Harvard
  • iLab Network – pairing kids with scientists using high powered microscopes to learn
• Students use the computer an average of 15 minutes per week at school!
• Need more and continued training for teacher use
• Student and teacher access for technology
• Use of digital content tied to state academic standards
• Need to measure and SHARE with policy makers the successes of our tech programs
• Creativity is highest at 6 (100 questions a day), terminal seriousness at 44 (2 questions a day), bounce at retirement
• Need to take risks, continue to question to move our efforts forward
• Leadership = Trust, Integrity, Passion

Michael Lach, Head of Math and Science, Chicago School District

• 430, 000 students, 27, 000 teachers in Chicago City Schools
• Lot of emphasis on local control; believe in the support of communities
• Ranks 49th among the 50 states in the share of education funding
• Still making good gains in both science and math
• CO’s + NSF = Math and Science Initiative
• Tools and support, increased content knowledge, extended learning opportunities all used to enhance the learning of science and math
• Use Math Thematics and Connected Mathematics as the main programs 6-8; Elementary Math Trailblazers and Everyday Mathematics
• Standard Scope and Sequence in Science
• Can correlate test score improvement with those educators who attend professional development on an ongoing basis
• They pay for teachers to take grad classes at several universities to add endorsements to their licensure
• School leadership is KEY!
• What we need more of:  formative feedback, leadership, equality in opportunity
• “Computers are not magic, teachers are magic” Craig Barrett, Intel

Sharon Schulze/Colleen Karl – NC Science House

• Science House emphasis on hands-on inquiry, research based programs, teacher training
• 14 full time staff/lots of part-time; 16 years of experience
• Partnerships with many business/industry
• Year round ed programs for students; summer camps
• K-12 Teacher support – manuals, content courses, workshops, extended programs
• Bennett’s Millpond Environment Learning Project
  • student learning
  • teacher involvement
  • community engagement
  • new partnerships
  • environmental citizenship
  • experimental design and research
  • Junior/Senior year
  • Model of Place Based Learning
  • increased professional networking
  • SCOS connected to outside learning
  • teachers/students feel a part of the scientific community
  • real life practice collecting and analyzing data
  • encourage the kids to design their own equipment
  • making kids aware of new career possibilities in the sciences

Bette Manchester, Director Maine Learning Technologies Initiative

Mainelearns.org 

• 1:1 initiative began 6 years ago
• promoted by Seymour Papert to Governor Angus King
• time and money spent working with teachers PRIOR to giving the kids the laptops
• program aimed at creating equity of resources for students and staff
• from the beginning it was not about the test scores, it was about learning!
• another goal was to increase collaboration between students and their teachers through the technology
• focus on PBL!
• commitment to change needs to be systemic, there need to be purpose, move to learner centered, PLC’s, culture of risk taking
• must build communication networks, virtual networks, training leadership teams, student teams (annual conference with all involved)
• assessment for learning practices – training/resources (templates, etc.) provided to the teachers
• involved teacher leaders (classroom teacher at building level), media specialist are both part of the teacher support component
• Maine Virtual Library
•  Math teachers had the hardest time using the laptops – received a grant to help support this need
• NSF grant – Ecoscience (using simulations for math/science); currently in pilot programs across the state
• Creativity/Innovation, Critical Friends Groups, Inquiry based learning
• Project’s foundation begins with quality classroom teachers, not technologists.
• Leadership is EVERYTHING!

Blogging live from the Friday Institute:

Audience is a cross-section of educators (primary-university), government, business.

Brave New Schools, How Computers Can Change Education – written by new director of Friday Inst.

Remarks from Katherine Moore, NC State College of Ed

• 1:1 pilot project started with 8th graders at Centennial MS

Remarks from Jim Goodnight, CEO SAS Institute

•  Spoke of the 21st Century belonging to Asia – US is not feeling the “clear and present danger” it needs to in the innovation/brain “war”.  We’ve got to teach to our technologically savvy kids!

Keynote Speaker – Alan Kay – Viewpoints Research Institute (non-profit dedicated to children and learning)

• “It’s the fundamental changes that make the big difference.”
• “If there was ever an air guitar nation, it’s the United States.”
• We don’t need more scientists and engineers, we need higher quality scientists/engineers.
• “Distracting Ourselves to Death” – whenever you reset what is “normal” it makes it difficult to allow constructive criticism
• “Science is a debugging process for our bad human brains.”
• Mentioned Francis Bacon and the beginnings of real science
• No reason to make a distinction between the STEM areas to/for children.  They should be interconnected.
• The Internet has killed criticism because there is so much out criticism out on the Internet.
• Believes that more knowledge is gained in Science through reading because you can’t experiment with everything in Science.
• $100 laptop includes Etoys (worldwide authoring tool)
• Adults who teach children generally lack sufficient fluency in math thinking.
• Squeakland.org
• Never give simulations that are already written, the child should be the one to create the variables and experiment with them.
• Must use phenomenon that are in the child’s world as part of the investigation.
• Lillian McDermott – physicist who studies how people learn science

Definitely need to spend some time with the above links!