Math is Divine

This is a beautiful display of more than a few mathematical concepts:

HT

Young Adult Science Fiction

This last semester in grad school has started pretty smoothly. I’ve got things all worked out for my practicum and have a good bit of the YA lit class under my belt.

One of the YA lit requirements is to do a book talk of six books united by a theme. After finding a spot and discussing it with the teacher, she’d like for me to do Sci-Fi / horror as an introduction to Frankenstein.

I’ve been perusing titles, but before I spend too much time looking at the unknown, I was wondering if you had any YA title suggestions that might be off the beaten path.

Collaboration and writing – too cool!

HT to Paul Hamilton for this one.

Storybird provides the medium for writing with art provided. The part I really liked – besides the writing was the collaboration possibilities. Woozers! Wonderful potential there. Take the tour, and you’ll see what I mean.

a great commercial!

 

HT: eChurch

Woman Not Allowed To Donate Pagan Books To Son’s School – Winston-Salem News Story – WXII The Triad

Woman Not Allowed To Donate Pagan Books To Son’s School – Winston-Salem News Story – WXII The Triad.

A North Carolina mother says her son’s school is refusing books supportive of her pagan beliefs after last month offering Bibles.

Apparently Bibles had been handed out earlier by the Gideons.

This link has a fuller story.

Is there a line to be drawn? Do we take one set of sacred texts and not the other? Should there be a difference for religious texts taken at the three school levels?

Having just worked on a collection development policy, I know that we want to make sure that books in the library are as fact based as possible. Is a Bible “Christian propoganda” as stated in the second link? I’ve never thought of the Bible as propoganda. Chick Tracts? yes. Bible? no.

Wishing there was a list of the books she wanted to donate.

New (to me) Book Site

School has started back with the proverbial bang (read: I’m tired).

I found a site. Wishing I could remember where I saw it the first time, but I’ve racked my brain and just can’t seem to remember.

It’s called Gospel eBooks and they scout out free or inexpensive Kindle editions. Some of them look good. Some of them I would never pick up, but that’s the way of many sites.

This link is for the free page. I got The Secret Holocaust Diaries. I will have time to read again one day. . .

beautiful libraries worldwide

from bootsnall It’s early, but I only counted 7 .  . .

NC Teacher Evaluation Artifacts

For those of you NOT in the know, NC adopted a teacher evaluation tool last year developed by McREL. We used to have one that was a few pages long in a 10-12 pt font. Teachers were marked on a five point scale from unsatisfactory to excellent. Most of it was things that could easily be observed in any lesson when the observer walked into your classroom – not all, but most.

Enter the NEW evaluation tool.

• We have training.
• We have manuals.
• We have case studies.
• We have articles written about us.
• We have forms.
• We have artifacts. Because a great deal of what the instrument measures cannot be seen in any lesson. Some can, but not all.

So now we have an instrument that is 11 pages in an 8 pt font. There are five standards with multiple sub standards which seem straight forward enough on the surface. To make things murky, however, the instrument has separated out things like Global Awareness, 21st Century learning, collaboration and technology. Those (in my poor feeble mind) should be lumped together because they are so intertwined. There are also leadership and PD things that could have been combined. Needless to say, I would have streamlined it more (oh so much more).

The graded categories are:

• Developing
• Proficient
• Accomplished
• Distinguished
• and the dreaded Not Demonstrated

You must meet all the criteria for developing to be proficient. You must meet all the criteria for developing and proficient to be accomplished . . . Fine, except two strands in a single sub standard might not always go together. For instance, global awareness is in the same sub standard as demonstrating knowledge of your content. Really? I know what they want. They want us to make sure that our content is seen in the big picture of how it can be used in the world, but sometimes we just have to practice the algorithm. Doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme if they can’t do the math first.  Another one is on assessment – the use of formative and summative, but in the same category is assessment of 21st century skills. Math isn’t a 21st century skill on it’s own? Now, I’ve got to develop assessments that distinctly measure 21st century skills. *whew*

I’ve had one artifact presentation meeting and I learned a few things.

1. Don’t just throw all your stuff in a box and sort through it the weekend before your first artifact meeting.
2. Know the standards and sub-standards backwards and forwards. Since there are some gray areas and overlaps, this will help tremendously in deciding which artifacts or evidences work best where.
3. Use a list similar to this one so you can see examples of what kinds of things can be used under the different standards.
4. Make a table of contents. There are so many overlaps on the instrument that you may not be able to remember in which section you put a particular evidence. Also, I’m planning on notating it so questions may be able to be answered without the time consuming location of the item. Even with a TofC – we are talking tons of items.
5. Focus on your weaknesses. Purposely place those items into your lesson plans to use and then purposely gather some evidence.  Evidences for your areas of strength are going to come easily.
6. If an agenda is not provided, keep a handwritten one for every meeting, PD, etc. Do it right in your calendar and it’s all in one place.
7. Don’t try to do it alone. If there was ever a time for collaboration, this is it. I felt a bit rushed and didn’t utilize this as much as I would have liked. But as we talked, one teacher would mention an item and it would make me think of something I’d done that I could use. Then we’d brainstorm and come up with others. Also, other teachers remembered things I’d done that I had forgotten.

I really wanted to display mine in some kind of unique way: a powerpoint, a website, a blog. I just waited to late this year for that. It was too big a bear when I sat down to organize, but in searching for ways to present, I came across this site:

NC Teacher Evaluation System of Cataloging and Collaborating

I didn’t get a chance to use it, but I did scan through it and it looks good even if it doesn’t appear too many are using it. Something to think about if you don’t wait until the last minute like I did!

Oh my! Dolly said what?!

Sold by Toys R Us! This is a video. I  was impressed that the minister’s daughter told him that the doll needed to be returned to the store! 

Gray said he and his wife played with the doll a little longer and it was clear to them the doll sounded as if it was saying an offensive word used toward women.

“(It) truly has a potty mouth and hard to shut up once she gets started she enjoys saying it,” Gray said.

Read more: http://www.wxii12.com/news/30091106/detail.html#ixzz1hsVqTlDD

Not quite like the Chatty Cathy I got 100 years ago

Reading for Teens

I am about to enter my LAST semester of the MLS program. I’ll be taking the practicum (110 hours mainly after school and on Saturdays – please pray that I do not become more unglued than I already am), and the not so anticipated Young Adult materials course.

One thing I’ve discovered is that the Young Adult sections in the libraries round these parts are more than a bit skimpy. The required books for the course are:

• Crank by Ellen Hopkins – Book of poetry about a girl who goes to visit her father and gets hooked on crank. All the pitfalls are amazingly graphic. The poetry was hard to get into, but once I did, it really flowed.
• Beastly by Alex Flinn – Teenage retake on Beauty and the Beast. Pretty good.
• What Happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles – Snotty girl disses guy who kills himself. Brother kidnaps her. Story is told from several points of view. Great twist at the end. Nicely done.
• Deadline by Chris Crutcher – Boy gets medical death sentence and decides to live his last year to its fullest without telling anyone. Pretty good.
• The Killer’s Cousin by Nancy Werlin – A young man goes to live with his aunt and uncle. Having killed another teen, he clearly has issues, but his cousin also has some serious issues.
• Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block – This one was just weird. Short, but weird.
• The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks – Two young men go off to find the story behind their sister’s murder. More psychological than I usually read.
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier – I liked this one. Stubborn boy refuses to participate in the annual chocolate sale at school. A sale that is run by what can only be called a gang of thugs. Boy stands his ground but pays a very big price.
• Inexcusable by Chris Lynch – Date rape.

Still need to read the following. Hoping to have them done by the end of the week.

• Forever by Judy Blume
• Tyrell by Coe Booth
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Then I get to find and read six more for a book talk. woohoo