maximizing students learning

Improved access to learning: to maximize student learning, everyone in the school community needs timely and effective access to the right information and learning resources

To maximize student learning, everyone in the school community--teachers, parents, the principal and support staff--needs timely and effective access to just the right information and learning resources. At Willow, technology helps provide this access and ensure that learning is and continues to be the major focus of the school. She provides workshops and support for administrators who want to integrate technology. She can be reached at millers@ulv.edu. Also a former school principal, Michael Simkins is TICAL's creative director. He can be reached at msimkins@portical.org. TICAL (www.portical.org), is a statewide educational techno y service provided by Santa Cruz COE under contract to the CDE.log

What service training should be conducted in school

Gives a brief view of the in-service training of primary school teachers in Greece in the historical contexts as well as the current situation. The major purpose, however, is to investigate the views of directors and vice directors of “regional in-service training centres” (PEK) about the different aspects of in-service training of primary school teachers. These include: the objectives and curricula of different in-service training programmes; the methodology of teaching and practice; the assessment criteria for trainee teachers; the criteria for the selection of trainees and trainers; the provision of daily allowance for trainees and trainers; the organizational set-up; the financing and nature, duration and management and control of different training programmes. The results showed that generally the respondents were satisfied with the existing situation. The chi-square (w2) test demonstrated that position/rank and qualification had no significant impact on the opinions of directors and vice directors regarding most of these aspects.

School education staff (teaching and non-teaching), including:

• Teachers (including those in pre-school and vocational education) and the trainers of such teachers
• Head teachers and school managerial staff
• Staff involved in intercultural education or working with children of migrant workers and travellers
• Staff working with pupils with special education needs
• Staff working with pupils at risk, such as mediators and street educators
• Counsellors or careers advisors
• The inspectorate
• Other education staff at the discretion of national authorities

For participation in an in-service training course for language teachers :

• A qualified and practising foreign language teacher working in school education
• A trainer of such foreign language teachers
• A teacher re-training as a school education foreign language teacher
• A primary or pre-primary teacher who is (or will be) required to teach foreign languages
• A teacher of another subject in school education through the medium of a foreign language
• An inspector or advisor in the field of school education language teaching

For a grant for pure language training :

• A school teacher of non-language subjects through a foreign language
• A school teacher retraining as a foreign language teacher
• A primary or pre-primary teacher who is (or will be) required to teach foreign languages
• A member of school education staff participating in a Comenius Partnership and requesting training in a Partnership language
• A school teacher requesting training in a less widely taught and less usedlanguage

NB: structured training courses will normally have a minimum duration of 5 full working days; other training may be shorter.

The training for which grants are awarded may relate to the candidate’s professional activities in any aspect of school education. This may have to do with:

• Practical teaching skills, techniques and methodologies
• The content and delivery of school education
• The management of school education
• The system/policy level of school education

Grants are awarded for participation in training which is suitable for achieving the applicant’s stated in-service training objectives and which complies with the necessary quality criteria (e.g. appropriate to general Comenius objectives, European dimension and added value compared to training in the applicant’s home country). An on-line database of training activities is available to help applicants identify training which is eligible for funding under this action and which best meets their training needs: http://ec.europa.eu/education/trainingdatabase/

Why the lesson is properly sequence

Elementary teachers can use the children's book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake to teach students how to correctly sequence plot events in a fictional story

Sequencing is a reading comprehension skill that elementary students need to learn to become proficient readers. Knowing how to order events in a story helps elementary students better understand the text they are reading. Teachers can use a cupcake recipe to demonstrate to the kids how important it is to be able to correctly sequence events.

Elementary Sequencing Lesson Plan Objective

The students will correctly sequence the story events in the book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff [HarperCollins, 2008].

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake Sequencing Lesson Materials

• If You Give a Cat a Cupcake book
• Box cake mix and necessary ingredients
• Cupcake pans, liners, mixing bowl
• Frosting
• Multiple paper copies of a cupcake outline
• Crayons or markers

the function of teacher help in achievement of the goals of the school

ASSESSMENT

• Develop standards-aligned, measurable, ambitious big goals that will increase student opportunities for achievement; assess and track performance against these goals.
• Measure student achievement of, and progress toward, the learning objectives and big goals with formative and summative assessment tools.
• Provide ongoing and timely feedback to students on their progress towards meeting big goals by frequently checking for understanding and listening.
• Use data to reflect on effectiveness of lessons and student achievement progress in order to improve instruction and personal practice.
• Use data to update each student’s Individual Learning Plan.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

• Create a focused environment of fairness and respect that encourages students to take risks and strive to reach goals.
• Communicate and enforce high expectations and standards for behavior and academic performance, aligned with the LHA School Culture Guide and Responsive Classroom, to create a strong culture of achievement and respect.
• Establish, model, practice, and reinforce age-appropriate rules and logical consequences; create and consistently use individual behavioral management plans, as needed.
• Implement classroom procedures, systems, and routines that provide structure for students and maximize instructional time.

FAMILY and COMMUNITY RELATIONS

• Communicate respectfully and thoughtfully with parent/guardians remaining sensitive to different families’ cultures, values and needs.
• Initiate and maintain timely communication with all parents/guardians (through daily/weekly folders, notes home, weekly newsletters, phone calls, in-person meetings, conferences, report cards) concerning student progress and to provide a clear picture of the curriculum and high expectations.
• Work collaboratively with parents/guardians, families, and other members of the community to involve them in academic activities and to support the success of a diverse student population and to bring in volunteers and additional resources.

PROFESSIONALISM

• Collaborate with colleagues (grade level and school-wide meetings, professional development days, the professional development institute) to continuously improve personal practice, classroom instruction, assessment, and student achievement, as well as the overall goals and mission of the school and the network.
• Access meaningful learning experiences (current theory, research, and developments in relevant academic disciplines, professional development opportunities, and ideas from colleagues and supervisors) and exercises judgment in accepting findings as valid for application in classroom practice and teacher improvement.
• Reflect critically upon teaching experience; identify areas for further professional development as part of a professional development plan that is linked to grade level, school, and network goals; access meaningful learning experiences; and listen thoughtfully to other viewpoints and respond constructively to suggestions and criticisms.
• Use feedback to update Individual Professional Development Plan.
• Fulfill all outlined and related functions professionally, timely and thoroughly.

The study found that previous achievment levels and student intelligence are excellent predictors of achievement; that teacher experience is occasionally a factor in student achievement; and that the effect of teacher and school variables is larger for black students than for white students. The study concludes that school level variables explain virtually none of the variation in student achievement and that it is unlikely that such factors as administrator intensity, teacher and pupil attendance rates, and resource allocation will have much impact on student achievement. (JEH)

tecniques use to envolve students in every activity

techniques use to evolve students in every activity

Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in class listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.

--Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson, "Seven Principles for Good Practice,"
AAHE Bulletin 39: 3-7, March 1987

What is Active Learning?
Active learning is simply that--having students engage in some activity that forces them to think about and comment on the information presented. Students won't simply be listening, but will be developing skills in handling concepts in our disciplines. They will analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information in discussion with other students, through asking questions, or through writing. In short, students will be engaged in activities that force them to reflect upon ideas and upon how they are using those ideas. The ways of involving our students in learning activities are as varied as our disciplines. Here we'll try to outline several areas that you might experiment with in order to challenge your students to move beyond memorization to higher levels of understanding.

A Change in Lecturing
Lecturing, of course, can be an effective way of communicating--of delivering a great deal of information not easily available otherwise, or of demonstrating an analytic process. But we also know that lecturing doesn't always encourage students to move beyond memorization of the information presented to analyzing and synthesizing ideas so that they can employ them in new ways. Though we may rely on conventional lectures to communicate information and concepts with our own perspective, it's possible to help students more fully grasp and assimilate the ideas we're presenting. Breaking up the conventional fifty-minute lecture with questions and discussion is perhaps the first action to consider.

Some lecturers begin class by first having students brainstorm problems that remained unresolved from the previous lecture, or raise questions from the previous lecture or their reading assignment. The lecturer can then address these issues while proceeding with the day's topic, responding to student input while covering new material. This exercise can be particularly useful if students know in advance that you'll be asking for their participation at the beginning of the class. Another simple technique to involve students is to pause for a few minutes two or three times during an hour lecture to allow students to consolidate notes and develop questions about the material being presented. Too often we assume that students have understood and carefully noted down all that we've covered. But most students need time to organize their notes and think about the material. A short break can help them notice the gaps in their notes or jot down questions upper-most in their minds.

Additionally, a lecturer can pause and ask students to work in pairs to organize their notes and discuss the key points of the lecture. Each group could also develop questions based on what they feel is still unclear, and these questions could be addressed in the final minutes of the class or could serve as the starting point for the next lecture. A final effective technique is to have students close their notebooks a few minutes before the end of class and then ask them to reconstruct, on a blank sheet of paper, as much of the lecture as possible--either in outline form or diagrammatically. This exercise in immediate recall forces students to review and consolidate key points, and helps them discover areas for review.

Questioning and Discussion
Carrying on a discussion with our class seems entirely appropriate when we're facing 20 or 30 students. But with a hundred or more? Many instructors have found it not only possible, but a valuable component of the course, since students are forced to be alert and feel a greater sense of commitment to the class. Several techniques are possible with large classes: lecture for thirty minutes or so, and spend the final time asking questions that require students to apply what they've heard, or analyze it, or relate it to their reading assignments; punctuate lectures with brief questions that require students to explain major concepts with examples or analogies; use one class a week solely for discussion, so that students come prepared to participate. Simply put, most of the techniques we use in seminar discussions can be adapted to work in larger classes.

Cooperative Learning
Group work can be an extremely useful addition to a large class. Not only does peer discussion help students understand and retain material, but it helps them develop better communication skills. Students also become aware of the degree to which other students can be a valuable resource in learning. As many students will say, they know they really under-stand the subject matter when they must explain it or teach it to a peer. Some instructors break up a lecture by having students divide themselves into groups of three or four and answer specific questions, or solve specific problems. Each group appoints a spokesperson who may have to report on the group's progress, once the larger class reconvenes. It's not necessary to call on every group for a response--a general sense of the class's understanding can be gained by quickly polling several groups for their questions or comments.

Group work can also be used on a more formal scale. Students can be divided into groups early in the quarter, and encouraged to share phone numbers and addresses. Then specific group projects can be assigned that require groups to meet outside of class. Groups might be responsible for starting discussion, for presenting important concepts, or reporting on research. To generate discussion, groups can be told to research a complex issue and in class be asked to represent a specific position in an impromptu debate.

Role Plays and Case Studies
Like debates, role plays and simulations require students to place themselves in a particular situation or take a committed position on a key issue in the course. For example, students might become players in an historical event, one requiring they research positions and argue for certain actions or decisions. In scientific fields, students can become actual representatives of a physical process, acting it out to make it more concrete. More structured than role plays, case studies are stories, often based on real world examples, that place students in the role of decision maker. They contain the data students need to make sense of the situation, but don't usually contain analysis or conclusions. Students must make sense of the information and come to appropriate conclusions regarding the next actions to take, or the kind of data they will need in order to come to an appropriate conclusion. Case studies thus test students' analytic and problem solving approaches while making them conscious of how to use the skills they've been developing in the class. We tend to think of legal or business training as largely dependent on case study, but often ignore the fact that the case method is easily adapted to many disciplines--it is, after all, what we as professionals in a field actually encounter in our own work. What can make case study a powerful teaching device is the clear sense that this could indeed be a situation you or a colleague has encountered, and that there may be several ways of assessing the situation in order to find a reasonable solution. Indeed, the ambiguity inherent in many cases sparks discussion that forces students to weigh the credibility and validity of arguments and reasoning.

size of the class affect students performance

KEYS TO ACHIEVING A SMALL CLASS EFFECT (again from “Class Size Reduction: Lessons Learned from Experience” by Joan Mc Robbie, Jeremy D. Finn, and Patrick Harman)

· Adequate supply of good teachers. No organizational arrangement, including small class size, can compensate for poor teaching. In Tennessee, all STAR teachers were state certified and qualified to teach in their assigned grades. Even among the small classes, some teachers were more effective than others; researchers have yet to study what may have caused these differences.

· Sufficient classroom space. STAR’s participating schools had no problem finding appropriate space to create enough classrooms for the reduction in numbers of students per teacher.

· A representative student mix in each class. In STAR, the mixture of students in the class was determined at random and so mirrored the diversity in the school as a whole. Research has not revealed what would happen if, for example, 17 pupils with learning or behavior problems were assigned to a small class. In such a case, positive effects are less likely without the infusion of significant additional resources.

· Teacher access to adequate materials and services. STAR teachers had no change in the materials and services normally available to them. Small- and regular-class teachers had access to reading specialists, school psychologists, special

education programs (although there is evidence that the need for these services was reduced), and other school wide services.

· Small classes were not intended to serve as a substitute for other programs with demonstrated efficacy (including bilingual programs).

The art of leadership

There’s a saying” bend the tree while it is young; long afterwards it cannot be done.” A young plant which is bent grows into a crooked tree, while a plant that is strait grows into tall, straight tree. The kind of men and women we may be in the future depends on the character and personality we develop while we are still young, that’s why it is very important that we develop early in life clean, healthy habits, good character traits, a strong personality and wholesome attitude towards life and our fellow men.

Often times we experience to be a follower and a leader. Leadership entails various responsibilities. and the best question we can ask to our selves is” how can I become a good leader?” The leader is a great servant. One of the great philosophers expressed the ideal leadership in a democratic way when he said; and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant.

The leader sees thing trough the eyes of his followers. He pots himself in their place and helps them make their dreams come true. The leader does not say” get going” instead he says” lets go.” And leads the way. He does not walk behind instead he is out in front with a banner.

The leader duplicates himself in other. He is man builder that help his follower to grow big because he think that the more big the organization has the stronger it will be. The leader ha fait in people. He believes in them and brings out the best in them. He makes them rise high expectations.

The leaders use his heart as will as her head. After he has looked at the facts with his head, he lets his heart feels, hear and look too. He is not only boos he is also a friend.

The leader is a self starter. He create plans and sets them in motion. He both a man of thought and a man of action. dreamer and a doer. The leader has a sense of humor. he can laugh at himself. He has a humble spirit.

The leader can be led. He has a open mind and heart. He’s not interested in having and doing his own way. But he is always finding the best way.

The leader keeps his eyes on high goals. He strives to make the effort of his followers and himself contribute to the enrichment of personality, the achievement of more abundant living for all and the improvement of the civilization.