Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
EVER Mindful!
In the Classroom, a New Focus on Quieting the Mind
OAKLAND, Calif., June 12 — The lesson began with the striking of a Tibetan singing bowl to induce mindful awareness.
With the sound of their new school bell, the fifth graders at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School here closed their eyes and focused on their breathing, as they tried to imagine “loving kindness” on the playground.
“I was losing at baseball and I was about to throw a bat,” Alex Menton, 11, reported to his classmates the next day. “The mindfulness really helped.”
As summer looms, students at dozens of schools across the country are trying hard to be in the present moment. This is what is known as mindfulness training, in which stress-reducing techniques drawn from Buddhist meditation are wedged between reading and spelling tests.
Mindfulness, while common in hospitals, corporations, professional sports and even prisons, is relatively new in the education of squirming children. But a small but growing number of schools in places like Oakland and Lancaster, Pa., are slowly embracing the concept — as they did yoga five years ago — and institutions, like the psychology department at Stanford University and the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, are trying to measure the effects.
During a five-week pilot program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary, Miss Megan, the “mindful” coach, visited every classroom twice a week, leading 15 minute sessions on how to have “gentle breaths and still bodies.” The sound of the Tibetan bowl reverberated at the start and finish of each lesson.
The techniques, among them focused breathing and concentrating on a single object, are loosely adapted from the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the molecular biologist who pioneered the secular use of mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts in 1979 to help medical patients cope with chronic pain, anxiety and depression. Susan Kaiser Greenland, the founder of the InnerKids Foundation, which trains schoolchildren and teachers in the Los Angeles area, calls mindfulness “the new ABC’s — learning and leading a balanced life.”
At Stanford, the psychology department is assessing the feasibility of teaching mindfulness to families. “Parents and teachers tell kids 100 times a day to pay attention,” said Philippe R. Goldin, a researcher. “But we never teach them how.”
The experiment at Piedmont, whose student body is roughly 65 percent black, 18 percent Latino and includes a large number of immigrants, is financed by Park Day School, a nearby private school (prompting one teacher to grumble that it was “Cloud Nine-groovy-hippie-liberals bringing ‘enlightenment’ to inner city schools”).
But Angela Haick, the principal of Piedmont Avenue, said she was inspired to try it after observing a class at a local middle school.
“If we can help children slow down and think,” Dr. Haick said, “they have the answers within themselves.”
It seemed alternately loved and ignored, as students in Ms. Graham’s fifth-grade class tried to pay attention to their breath, a calming technique that lasted 20 seconds. Then their coach asked them to “cultivate compassion” by reflecting on their emotions before lashing out at someone on the playground.
Tyran Williams defined mindfulness as “not hitting someone in the mouth.”
“He doesn’t know what to do with his energy,” his mother, Towana Thomas, said at a session for parents. “But one day after school he told me, ‘I’m taking a moment.’ If it works in a child’s mind — with so much going on — there must be something to it.”
Asked their reactions to the sounds of the singing bowl, Yvette Solito, a third grader, wrote that it made her feel “calm, like something on Oprah.” Her classmate Corey Jackson wrote that “it feels like when a bird cracks open its shell.”
Dr. Amy Saltzman, a physician in Palo Alto, Calif., who started the Association for Mindfulness in Education three years ago, thinks of mindfulness education as “talk yoga.” Practitioners tend to use sticky-mat buzzwords like “being present” and “cultivating compassion,” while avoiding anything spiritual.
Dr. Saltzman, co-director of the mindfulness study at Stanford, said the initial findings showed increased control of attention and “less negative internal chatter — what one girl described as ‘the gossip inside my head: I’m stupid, I’m fat or I’m going to fail math,’ ” Dr. Saltzman said.
A recent study of teenagers by Kaiser Permanente in San Jose, Calif., found that meditation techniques helped improve mood disorders, depression, and self-harming behaviors like anorexia and bulimia.
Dr. Susan L. Smalley, a professor of psychiatry at U.C.L.A. and director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center there, which is studying the effects on schoolchildren, said one 4-year-old noticed her mother succumbing to road rage while stuck in traffic. “She said, ‘Mommy, Mommy, you have to sing the breathing song,’ ” Dr. Smalley said.
Although some students take naturally to mindfulness, it is “not a magic bullet,” said Diana Winston, the director of mindfulness education at the U.C.L.A. center. She said the research thus far was “inconclusive” about how effective mindfulness was for children who suffered from trauma-related disorders, for example. It is “a slow process,” Ms. Winston added. “Just because kids sit and listen to the bell doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be more kind.”
Glenn Heuser, who teaches a combined fourth- and fifth-grade class at Piedmont, said one student started crying about a dead grandparent and another over melted lip balm. “It tapped into a very emotional space for them,” Mr. Heuser said. “They struggled with, ‘Is it O.K. to go there?’ ”
Although mindful education may seem like a New Yorker caricature of West Coast life, the school district with possibly the best experience has been Lancaster, Pa., where mindfulness is taught in 25 classes a week at eight schools. The district has a substantial poverty rate, with 75 percent of students qualifying for free lunch.
Midge Kinder, a yoga teacher, and her husband, Rick, started the program six years ago at George Ross Elementary, where their daughter Wynne taught.
Camille Hopkins, the principal, said initially she was skeptical. Growing up in South Philadelphia, “I was never told to take an elevator breath”— a way of breathing in stages, taught in yoga — “or hear the signals of chimes to cool down,” Ms. Hopkins said.
But the stresses today are greater, she conceded, particularly on students who lived with the threat of violence. “A lot of things we watched on TV are part of their everyday life,” she said. “It’s ‘Did you know so-and-so got shot over the weekend.’ ”
In after-school detention, children are asked to “check in with their feelings,” Ms. Hopkins said. “How are you really changing behavior if they’re just sitting there?”
Yolanda Steel, a second-grade teacher at Piedmont, said she was hopeful that the training would help an attention-deficit generation better manage a barrage of stimuli, including PlayStations and text messages. “American children are overstimulated,” Ms. Steel said. “Some have difficulty even closing their eyes.”
But she noted that some students tapped pencils and drummed on desks instead of closing their eyes and listening to the bell. “The premise is nice,” Ms. Steel concluded. “But mindfulness can’t do it all.”
Friday, June 15, 2007
Howell's new Parker HS,model for the future
Thursday, June 14, 2007
John M. Galloway / Special to The Detroit News
Howell's new Parker High School, which opens this fall, is attached to its football stadium and bleachers.
Model school prepares for future
Howell's new $72 million campus is geared toward offering students real-world business training, experience.
Valerie Olander / The Detroit News
School is out for Howell High School's 1,900 students who left behind a traditional school with a conventional school day.
Next fall, they will step into the new Parker High School, which Michigan educational leaders are already hailing as a statewide model for preparing students for college and their future.
The $72 million campus, south of Howell in Livingston County, will have a privately owned credit union and cashless convenience store, both geared toward offering students real-world business training and experience. Lansing Community College will have its own eight-classroom wing and students will be able to choose from more flexible scheduling options, with classes being offered for longer time periods on alternate days, evenings, weekends and even summer.
"This is an incubator for us to watch as all these ideas come together, said State Superintendent Michael Flanagan. "We're going to be watching this closely."
He expects the business partnerships to quantify the new rigorous graduation requirements going into effect for the Class of 2011, the freshman class.
Although partnerships are nothing new to the high school experience, Howell has taken it a step further to incorporate it into the classroom.
For example, Sterling Services' convenience store is linked to the marketing classroom where students will handle inventory and learn how to conduct sales research, and cause and effect marketing.
"Even the TV-video production students will be producing ads that will be shown within school. They'll be creating a product," said Principal Bill Smith. "About 60 kids will benefit from the store in its virtual environment and it will be merged with accounting classes. They'll look at supply and demand in economy classes. It's basically a learning lab."
The reinvention of the high school experience has coincided with Michigan's tougher high school standards designed to better prepare students for college and the working world. "This is (the) first time (in Michigan) for merging the building structure and curriculum to provide an avenue for these partnerships," Smith said. The college wing expands dual enrollment options for students making it available to all teens, not just for gifted students in accelerated programs. It also allows students to "double dip" on math and science credits needed for high school graduation, by taking community college classes and getting credits toward an associate degree or transferable credits to any state college, Flanagan said.
"My dream has been that all kids can get a high school diploma and a community college (associate) degree in five years," he said.
Smith said Parker's curriculum is set up to accomplish just that. A student who takes full advantage of what is being offered could essentially graduate with a high school diploma in one hand, an associate's degree in the other with practical business and leadership skills to put on a resume, he said.
From the outside, Parker High School looks like most learning institutions. Inside, it's open and airy with transom lighting and a multitude of large pane energy-efficient windows to let in the natural light. Motion sensors flip on classroom fluorescents.
Howell Superintendent Chuck Breiner, who was been invited to numerous universities, including Harvard University to speak about Parker's mission, said the partnerships are more about student opportunities, rather than financial gain in the face of a school funding crisis. LCC will be paying about $68,000 annually in its lease agreement and contributing another $5,000 in reimbursements for students who succeed in course work. LOC Federal Credit Union, which has 500-square-feet of space, will pay $300 per month.
Howell students have been sold on the educational philosophy and the flex scheduling options at Parker, however, one social aspect has been a constant concern.
"I'm taking the flex scheduling in the a.m. so I can work. The only thing I don't like about it is that I'm afraid I won't see my friends," said Dani Rencsak, who will be a senior this fall.
The flex scheduling is partly needed to accommodate the 1,900 students in the district's second high school, built for 1,350, while the existing Howell High is closed 15 months for renovations.However, when both schools are fully operational, flex scheduling will remain, Breiner said.
While LCC is the first known college to be built as part of a high school, according to Breiner and Flanagan, the same is true for LOC Federal Credit Union. "School branches" have been set up at other school districts. Typically, the banks operate in cafeterias one day a week to promote savings habits for youngsters, said Debbie Mashinske, LOC's vice president of marketing.
"We'll have some internships available (at Parker) and right now we're working with teachers to come up with assignments that can be used in other classes," she said.
Flanagan said programs that allow hands-on experiences make all the difference in learning.
"Study after study shows when kids don't learn it's because they don't see the relevance of what they're doing," he said. "It's the relevance piece that kids will get from this."
John M. Galloway / Special to The Detroit News
Howell's new Parker High School, which opens this fall, is attached to its football stadium and bleachers.
Model school prepares for future
Howell's new $72 million campus is geared toward offering students real-world business training, experience.
Valerie Olander / The Detroit News
School is out for Howell High School's 1,900 students who left behind a traditional school with a conventional school day.
Next fall, they will step into the new Parker High School, which Michigan educational leaders are already hailing as a statewide model for preparing students for college and their future.
The $72 million campus, south of Howell in Livingston County, will have a privately owned credit union and cashless convenience store, both geared toward offering students real-world business training and experience. Lansing Community College will have its own eight-classroom wing and students will be able to choose from more flexible scheduling options, with classes being offered for longer time periods on alternate days, evenings, weekends and even summer.
"This is an incubator for us to watch as all these ideas come together, said State Superintendent Michael Flanagan. "We're going to be watching this closely."
He expects the business partnerships to quantify the new rigorous graduation requirements going into effect for the Class of 2011, the freshman class.
Although partnerships are nothing new to the high school experience, Howell has taken it a step further to incorporate it into the classroom.
For example, Sterling Services' convenience store is linked to the marketing classroom where students will handle inventory and learn how to conduct sales research, and cause and effect marketing.
"Even the TV-video production students will be producing ads that will be shown within school. They'll be creating a product," said Principal Bill Smith. "About 60 kids will benefit from the store in its virtual environment and it will be merged with accounting classes. They'll look at supply and demand in economy classes. It's basically a learning lab."
The reinvention of the high school experience has coincided with Michigan's tougher high school standards designed to better prepare students for college and the working world. "This is (the) first time (in Michigan) for merging the building structure and curriculum to provide an avenue for these partnerships," Smith said. The college wing expands dual enrollment options for students making it available to all teens, not just for gifted students in accelerated programs. It also allows students to "double dip" on math and science credits needed for high school graduation, by taking community college classes and getting credits toward an associate degree or transferable credits to any state college, Flanagan said.
"My dream has been that all kids can get a high school diploma and a community college (associate) degree in five years," he said.
Smith said Parker's curriculum is set up to accomplish just that. A student who takes full advantage of what is being offered could essentially graduate with a high school diploma in one hand, an associate's degree in the other with practical business and leadership skills to put on a resume, he said.
From the outside, Parker High School looks like most learning institutions. Inside, it's open and airy with transom lighting and a multitude of large pane energy-efficient windows to let in the natural light. Motion sensors flip on classroom fluorescents.
Howell Superintendent Chuck Breiner, who was been invited to numerous universities, including Harvard University to speak about Parker's mission, said the partnerships are more about student opportunities, rather than financial gain in the face of a school funding crisis. LCC will be paying about $68,000 annually in its lease agreement and contributing another $5,000 in reimbursements for students who succeed in course work. LOC Federal Credit Union, which has 500-square-feet of space, will pay $300 per month.
Howell students have been sold on the educational philosophy and the flex scheduling options at Parker, however, one social aspect has been a constant concern.
"I'm taking the flex scheduling in the a.m. so I can work. The only thing I don't like about it is that I'm afraid I won't see my friends," said Dani Rencsak, who will be a senior this fall.
The flex scheduling is partly needed to accommodate the 1,900 students in the district's second high school, built for 1,350, while the existing Howell High is closed 15 months for renovations.However, when both schools are fully operational, flex scheduling will remain, Breiner said.
While LCC is the first known college to be built as part of a high school, according to Breiner and Flanagan, the same is true for LOC Federal Credit Union. "School branches" have been set up at other school districts. Typically, the banks operate in cafeterias one day a week to promote savings habits for youngsters, said Debbie Mashinske, LOC's vice president of marketing.
"We'll have some internships available (at Parker) and right now we're working with teachers to come up with assignments that can be used in other classes," she said.
Flanagan said programs that allow hands-on experiences make all the difference in learning.
"Study after study shows when kids don't learn it's because they don't see the relevance of what they're doing," he said. "It's the relevance piece that kids will get from this."
What is the Message here?
Students to work for their tuition at new Catholic school
June 15, 2007
A new co-ed Catholic high school in Detroit will use innovative partnerships to put students to work at local businesses, with their salaries going to the school to shave thousands of dollars off the cost of each student's tuition.
Students at Detroit Cristo Rey High School, slated to open for the 2008-09 school year, will be required to work five days a month in entry-level jobs at one of 23 partner businesses, including Marygrove College, Henry Ford Health System and the YMCA.
Students' wages will go directly to the school to cover 70% of the tuition costs. It's a model used by a growing network of Cristo Rey schools across the country and will build on momentum in rebounding southwest Detroit.
At most Catholic schools in the area, tuition averages $6,000 to $8,000 a year per student. The out-of-pocket cost to parents for Detroit Cristo Rey would be about $2,200 a year, said Sister Canice Johnson, project director for the school's planning team.
"We know that some families won't be able to pay that," Johnson added, noting that private donations could further subsidize tuition for students who need it.
Detroit Cristo Rey is to operate out of the vacant Holy Redeemer building and will be the first coed Catholic high school in the city since 2005, when Holy Redeemer, East Catholic and St. Martin de Porres closed.
Community residents, area businesses and church leaders have spent nearly two years meeting and conducting a feasibility study before getting the approval to open Detroit Cristo Rey, which is expected to have 100 to 125 students. A new freshmen class will be added each year for the next three years. The school is expected to reach its capacity of 500 students in about five years.
John Foley is president of the Cristo Rey Network, which began with a single school in 1996 and is expected to grow to 19 by August, when seven new schools in urban areas across the country are slated to open. They boast graduation rates that exceed the public school systems in their communities. Chicago's Cristo Rey school, for example, graduated 89% of its students last year, and 96% of Cristo Rey's 2005 graduates went on to college.
"Our students raised close to $15 million toward their own education through working," Foley said. "They are their own fund-raisers. ... Their self-confidence just overflows. They never realized they were capable of holding down such a job."
Across the 12 schools already in the Cristo Rey Network, 63% of students are Hispanic and 35% are African American, Foley said. All are from economically disadvantaged families, who on average have four members and a household income of $33,051 a year, Johnson said.
"Yes, we are an exclusive school. If you make too much money, you can't come here," Johnson said, without specifying a cut-off income.
Mari Kirkendoll, 51, of southwest Detroit hopes to send her twin sons to the school.
"It's a boost to the self-esteem of the community and certainly a ray of hope," Kirkendoll said. "It will prepare them for the real work world. I think it will reinforce the work ethic that I'm trying to instill in them."
She said she was devastated when Holy Redeemer closed.
"I really thought about sending them out of state, but it still would have been a Catholic school," she said. "I just never lost hope that something would come in place of Holy Redeemer, and I also hoped it would be in this community because it is ... representative of the real world."
The school is cosponsored by the Basilian Fathers along with the Sisters, Servants Immaculate Heart of Mary. It grew out of a grassroots effort of religious and community leaders and concerned parents.
The Cristo Rey Network has agreed to give $450,000 over three years in start-up costs to the Detroit school. The school also is seeking financial support from other donors and already has received funding from the Skillman Foundation, the Sisters of Mercy, the Archdiocese of Detroit, the Irene M. and Milton R. Weed Foundation, Save Our Catholic Schools and Price Waterhouse Coopers.
Maria Elena Rodriguez, corporate work-study partner for Detroit Cristo Rey and president of the Mexicantown Community Development Corp., said the school will be an investment in southwest Detroit's future.
"It's a real shot in the arm," she said Thursday. "What's most important is that our kids are not written off, not only in southwest Detroit, but throughout the city."
Contact KRISTEN JORDAN SHAMUS at 313-222-5997 or kshamus@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Rethinking NCLB and Tech's Role in Education
Rethinking NCLB and Technology’s Role in Education
The ATTAIN Act, hailed by education and technology industry leaders, recognizes that the use of technology, systemic school change and professional development are essential to global competitiveness.
by Mary Axelson
"Obtaining critical technological skills is of greatest concern to low-income minority students who are falling further behind their higher-income peers in terms of 21st Century college and workplace skills,” said Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, in testimony before the Committee on Education and Labor. “An effective federal program that provides access to technology for low-income and minority students will help to close this gap."
Accordingly, Roybal recently co-sponsored legislation designed to improve the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT, Title II-D of NCLB) program as part of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). HR 2449, the Achievement Through Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) Act, would revamp EETT (Title II-D of NCLB), improving support for disadvantaged schools and students and ensuring that teachers are properly equipped to use the technology effectively.
“One of the most effective ways we can sharpen America’s competitive edge is by investing in technology in the classroom,” said Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), a co-sponsor. “This bill will further the technological prowess of our nation’s schools and students and will ultimately increase our economic prosperity and capacity for innovation.”
Measuring Technological Literacy
The bill concentrates funds on professional development and systemic reform that leverage 21st century technologies and prioritize funding to schools in need of improvement. The existing legislation asks that students be technologically literate by the eighth grade, and requires states to assess whether this goal has been reached, but provides no definition of the term. ATTAIN defines technological literacy as:
Student knowledge and skills in using contemporary information, communication and learning technologies in a manner necessary for successful life-long learning and citizenship in the knowledge-based, digital, and global 21st century, which includes the abilities to effectively communicate and collaborate; to analyze and solve problems; to access, evaluate, manage and create information and otherwise gain information literacy; and to do so in a safe and ethical manner.
The law clarifies that states are not expected to develop separate assessments of technology literacy, and it opens the task to “embedding such assessment items in other State tests, performance-based assessment portfolios, or through other means." The bill also clarifies that "such assessments shall be used only to track student technology literacy and not for purposes of determining adequate yearly progress."
An NSF project to define and measure technology literacy may also prove influential. Its 2006 report on the issue, Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy, recommended new NSF studies asking subsets of students “what they have learned about technology both in and out of school, and how they would troubleshoot everyday problems involving technology;” adding questions about technology to existing tests that measure students' knowledge in mathematics, science, and history; and assessing the technological literacy of teachers.
A few examples of existing technology assessments are worth watching. Two years ago the state of Florida developed a performance-based assessment of teacher’s skills linked to professional development. That technology framework is being expanded to student assessment. The UK’s work with technology-based performance assessments in a virtual world may also receive greater attention if states seek embedded technology assessment.
Professional Development for Global Competitiveness
Along with Representatives Roybal-Allard and Hinojosa, U.S. Representatives Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Ron Kind (D-WI) helped introduce the ATTAIN Act. It is based upon input from education stakeholders, including the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SEDTA).
Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE, spoke of the focus on professional development. “Teachers are our nation’s most valuable resources and absolutely crucial to whether education technology implementations succeed. The ATTAIN Act’s focus on technology professional development will help ensure that our investments in school hardware, software and infrastructure are leveraged for the benefit of our nation’s students.” The law itself identifies a lack of professional development and systemic change as the reason a recent study of software products showed no academic advantage for the technology.
CoSN CEO Keith Krueger praised the sponsoring legislators for understanding “the important role that education technology plays in meeting NCLB’s goals and equipping our students with the skills necessary to succeed in the modern workforce.”
“We do not want our students to fall behind in this era of innovation and global competition,” said Ken Wasch, president of SIIA. “Technology is vital for providing students with a learning environment that prepares them for the world beyond the classroom. The ATTAIN Act will ensure our educational system adopts modern methods to remain effective in the digital, information economy. We thank Representatives Roybal-Allard, Hinojosa, Biggert and Kind for their leadership on this important legislation.”
The Details
According to press releases, the ATTAIN Act would update the existing EETT program by:
Increasing the share of state-to-local funding distributed by formula from 50% to 60% and adding a minimum grant size in order to assure that more school districts receive allocations of sufficient size to permit them to operate significant education technology programs.
Strengthening the program’s emphasis on teacher quality and technology skills by raising the portion of formula-grants set aside for professional development from 25% to 40%, while emphasizing the importance of timely and ongoing training.
Channeling the 40% of funds allocated for competitive grants, previously unrestricted, to schools and districts for systemic school reform built around the use of technology to redesign curriculum, instruction, assessment and data use.
More closely aligning the program with NCLB’s core mission by giving priority in competitive grant awards to schools identified as in need of improvement, including those with a large percentage of Limited English Proficient students and students with disabilities, as well as by focusing formula grants on students and subjects where proficiency is most lacking.
Renewing NCLB’s commitment to ensuring that students are technologically literate by the eighth grade through requiring states to assess student knowledge and skills, including through embedding assessment items in other state tests and performance-based assessments portfolios.
Drawing state, district and school attention to the age and functionality needs of school technology infrastructure, access and applications by requiring states to provide technical assistance and guidance to districts on updating these resources.
Sources:
Press release from ISTE's Web site
Congresswoman Roybal-Allard’s testimonyNSF Press Release for Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy .
RSS
Privacy PolicySubscribe to the K12 Blueprint e-Newsletter-->
Subscribe to the K12 Blueprint e-Newsletter
Link to Us
K-12 Computing Blueprint is hosted by Technology & Learning, NewBay Media, LLC Copyright © 2007
The ATTAIN Act, hailed by education and technology industry leaders, recognizes that the use of technology, systemic school change and professional development are essential to global competitiveness.
by Mary Axelson
"Obtaining critical technological skills is of greatest concern to low-income minority students who are falling further behind their higher-income peers in terms of 21st Century college and workplace skills,” said Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, in testimony before the Committee on Education and Labor. “An effective federal program that provides access to technology for low-income and minority students will help to close this gap."
Accordingly, Roybal recently co-sponsored legislation designed to improve the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT, Title II-D of NCLB) program as part of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). HR 2449, the Achievement Through Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) Act, would revamp EETT (Title II-D of NCLB), improving support for disadvantaged schools and students and ensuring that teachers are properly equipped to use the technology effectively.
“One of the most effective ways we can sharpen America’s competitive edge is by investing in technology in the classroom,” said Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), a co-sponsor. “This bill will further the technological prowess of our nation’s schools and students and will ultimately increase our economic prosperity and capacity for innovation.”
Measuring Technological Literacy
The bill concentrates funds on professional development and systemic reform that leverage 21st century technologies and prioritize funding to schools in need of improvement. The existing legislation asks that students be technologically literate by the eighth grade, and requires states to assess whether this goal has been reached, but provides no definition of the term. ATTAIN defines technological literacy as:
Student knowledge and skills in using contemporary information, communication and learning technologies in a manner necessary for successful life-long learning and citizenship in the knowledge-based, digital, and global 21st century, which includes the abilities to effectively communicate and collaborate; to analyze and solve problems; to access, evaluate, manage and create information and otherwise gain information literacy; and to do so in a safe and ethical manner.
The law clarifies that states are not expected to develop separate assessments of technology literacy, and it opens the task to “embedding such assessment items in other State tests, performance-based assessment portfolios, or through other means." The bill also clarifies that "such assessments shall be used only to track student technology literacy and not for purposes of determining adequate yearly progress."
An NSF project to define and measure technology literacy may also prove influential. Its 2006 report on the issue, Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy, recommended new NSF studies asking subsets of students “what they have learned about technology both in and out of school, and how they would troubleshoot everyday problems involving technology;” adding questions about technology to existing tests that measure students' knowledge in mathematics, science, and history; and assessing the technological literacy of teachers.
A few examples of existing technology assessments are worth watching. Two years ago the state of Florida developed a performance-based assessment of teacher’s skills linked to professional development. That technology framework is being expanded to student assessment. The UK’s work with technology-based performance assessments in a virtual world may also receive greater attention if states seek embedded technology assessment.
Professional Development for Global Competitiveness
Along with Representatives Roybal-Allard and Hinojosa, U.S. Representatives Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Ron Kind (D-WI) helped introduce the ATTAIN Act. It is based upon input from education stakeholders, including the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SEDTA).
Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE, spoke of the focus on professional development. “Teachers are our nation’s most valuable resources and absolutely crucial to whether education technology implementations succeed. The ATTAIN Act’s focus on technology professional development will help ensure that our investments in school hardware, software and infrastructure are leveraged for the benefit of our nation’s students.” The law itself identifies a lack of professional development and systemic change as the reason a recent study of software products showed no academic advantage for the technology.
CoSN CEO Keith Krueger praised the sponsoring legislators for understanding “the important role that education technology plays in meeting NCLB’s goals and equipping our students with the skills necessary to succeed in the modern workforce.”
“We do not want our students to fall behind in this era of innovation and global competition,” said Ken Wasch, president of SIIA. “Technology is vital for providing students with a learning environment that prepares them for the world beyond the classroom. The ATTAIN Act will ensure our educational system adopts modern methods to remain effective in the digital, information economy. We thank Representatives Roybal-Allard, Hinojosa, Biggert and Kind for their leadership on this important legislation.”
The Details
According to press releases, the ATTAIN Act would update the existing EETT program by:
Increasing the share of state-to-local funding distributed by formula from 50% to 60% and adding a minimum grant size in order to assure that more school districts receive allocations of sufficient size to permit them to operate significant education technology programs.
Strengthening the program’s emphasis on teacher quality and technology skills by raising the portion of formula-grants set aside for professional development from 25% to 40%, while emphasizing the importance of timely and ongoing training.
Channeling the 40% of funds allocated for competitive grants, previously unrestricted, to schools and districts for systemic school reform built around the use of technology to redesign curriculum, instruction, assessment and data use.
More closely aligning the program with NCLB’s core mission by giving priority in competitive grant awards to schools identified as in need of improvement, including those with a large percentage of Limited English Proficient students and students with disabilities, as well as by focusing formula grants on students and subjects where proficiency is most lacking.
Renewing NCLB’s commitment to ensuring that students are technologically literate by the eighth grade through requiring states to assess student knowledge and skills, including through embedding assessment items in other state tests and performance-based assessments portfolios.
Drawing state, district and school attention to the age and functionality needs of school technology infrastructure, access and applications by requiring states to provide technical assistance and guidance to districts on updating these resources.
Sources:
Press release from ISTE's Web site
Congresswoman Roybal-Allard’s testimonyNSF Press Release for Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy .
RSS
Privacy PolicySubscribe to the K12 Blueprint e-Newsletter-->
Subscribe to the K12 Blueprint e-Newsletter
Link to Us
K-12 Computing Blueprint is hosted by Technology & Learning, NewBay Media, LLC Copyright © 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)