Carol’s Summary:

Columnist Elisabeth Rosenthal asks “what makes a test feel like an interesting challenge rather than an anxiety-provoking assault?” Obviously, the test needs to be age-appropriate, which the Race to the Top program plans to put in place. Also, “high-stakes” testing – tests that define a students future off results from one day of testing – is shown to create anxiety and may not be reflective of the students overall abilities.

Rosenthal lived in China with her young children, 6 and 8, who were enrolled in a blended class environment, a mostly Western curriculum with an emphasis on discipline and testing.  10 years later and back in the U.S., when she asks them about the testing, all they remember was having fun since testing was commonplace. Rosenthal says, “the tests felt like so many puzzles; not so much a judgment on your being, but an interesting challenge.”

President Obama’s Race to the Top educational competition encourages more test taking. Instead of taking a long, intimidating test once a year, like was enforced with No Child Left Behind, these tests will be smaller and more frequent, allowing teachers to view students’ progress and help students throughout the semester. LifeBound has curricula that features true/false, fill in the blank, oral review, essay as well as the much-relied but overused multiple-choice questions.

Article: Testing, the Chinese Way

When my children were 6 and 8, taking tests was as much a part of the rhythm of their school day as tag at recess or listening to stories at circle time. There were the “mad minute” math quizzes twice each week, with the results elaborately graphed. There were regular spelling quizzes. Even today I have my daughter’s minutely graded third-grade science exams, with grades like 23/25 or A minus.

Read the entire article at: nytimes.com

Although social networking sites are becoming increasingly popular, there are still an abundance of people who are unfamiliar with these tools. There has been a recent uproar about the use of the word “tweet”, and a new debate on whether the word is appropriate to use in other outlets besides on-line. This debate has in some ways separated tech-savvy people from others.

This article explains the dynamics of each social networking site in detail and informs readers of why it may or may not benefit everyone. Facebook, the most popular of the sites, began as an electronic version of a college student directory, which displays names and photographs. It has grown into a billion-dollar industry that allows people to connect with one another and share things like news stories and photographs.

LinkedIn is similar to Facebook; however, it is geared more towards professionals and people looking to network in a professional environment. People can connect with potential employers and get advice on improving résumés. Twitter is at the forefront of “micro-blogging”, which allows people to share their thoughts with 140 characters or less. It is a great tool to share news and other links that one finds online.

Social media is a wonderful and useful tool not only for individuals but also for businesses. In addition to the LifeBound website, we also have a Facebook and twitter page, and we are constantly updating our pages with news articles, updates on our newest books, and tips for success. Visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lifebound or follow us on twitter through www.twitter.com/lifebound and www.twitter.com/caroljcarter.

Article:
For Those Facebook Left Behind
By DAVID POGUE
July 7, 2010
Last month, the standards editor at The New York Times wrote a memo that shocked — shocked! — bloggers everywhere. He asked Times writers to avoid using the word “tweet” (as in, “to say something on Twitter”).
“We don’t want to seem Paleolithic,” he wrote. “But we favor established usage and ordinary words over the latest jargon or buzzwords.”
That the Internet’s reaction was so swift and harsh only proves the point: the techno-savvy population can’t even conceive of the existence of a less savvy crowd. If you use jargon every day, you can’t imagine that millions of people have no idea what you’re talking about.

To read the full article: www.nytimes.com

Carol’s Summary:

 The Center on Education Policy released a report in March, addressing the fact that on average, boys in all grade levels have lower reading test scores than girls do. The data from the independent, Washington D.C. based organization has been accompanied by another report, which was released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

It has also been found that girls not only have been scoring higher in reading than boys, but that girls also tend to fare better academically overall. The exception is mathematics, which has generated varied results amongst boys and girls. On average, girls also have higher grade-point averages than boys in their grade level, and are likelier to graduate high school and go to college.

Although gender gaps in education have existed for decades, it is now becoming a global problem. In 2006, a study was released with data from fourth grade reading tests in 40 countries; the results showed that girls scored higher than boys in every area where data was collected properly.

Education experts and schools around the nation are now coming up with ideas for “boy friendly” teaching, which would engage boys’ interests in a way so that they would be likelier to succeed, particularly in literacy. There are many kinds of achievement gaps that need to be reduced and eventually closed, from gender to economic background and ethnicity.

There are as many different teaching styles as there are learning styles, and every child is different.  LifeBound books and curriculum provide teachers with different strategies and learning activities that engage different kinds of students. It is important that all students are on a level playing field, so that all children have an equal opportunity to succeed in school and in the real world. To learn more about LifeBound’s books, curriculum and other materials, visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com.

Article:

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context

Finding solutions to boys’ reading problems may require looking beyond gender

By MICHAEL SADOWSKI

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context, continued

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context: Finding solutions to boys’ reading problems may require looking beyond gender

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context

“The Boys Have Fallen Behind.” “Girls Lead the Nation in Reading Scores.” “Are Teachers Failing Our Sons?” Earlier this year, newspapers across the country ran these and other headlines in response to a March report by the independent Center on Education Policy (CEP) in Washington, D.C. The report, which outlined results on state accountability tests, raised alarm by noting that the percentage of boys scoring “proficient” or higher in reading was below that of girls at all grade levels tested and in every state for which sufficient data were available.

To read more: Harvard Education Letter

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

The Center for Global Advancement of Community Colleges aims to work with two-year institutions to help them strengthen their global focus. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education article below, “they will work to recruit more students from overseas and to build greater recognition of the American community-college system abroad.” The end goal is to ensure students graduate prepared for a global marketplace.

Community College students in America need to know about the world—cultures, economic disparities, languages, nuances in working environments—to be world-class ready upon graduation. This world knowledge can and should begin in high school and be emphasized throughout college. Almost every classroom has a rich ability to draw out the history and background of each student in that class, whether they are foreign born or their families immigrated to the U.S. hundreds of years ago. When students know more about the world, they will know more about themselves.

LifeBound shares this goal. All LifeBound materials profile international students and enforce 21st century skills so that students successfully transition from fifth through twelfth grade, graduate high school and enter college well aware of the world around them. Our get ready for college book, JUNIOR GUIDE TO SENIOR YEAR SUCCESS, for example, features college essays from students in Shanghai and Bangladesh as well as perspectives from people around the world who are solving the world’s greatest problems. Schools and curricula that promote worldwide understanding will help all students succeed in the years to come.

ARTICLE:

The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 13, 2010
New Group Will Help Community Colleges Become More Globally Focused
By Karin Fischer

Several veterans of international education have started a new membership organization that will seek to help community colleges become more globally focused.

The Center for Global Advancement of Community Colleges will work with two-year institutions to recruit more students from overseas and to build greater recognition of the American community-college system abroad.

To view this entire article visit www.chronicle.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Stacy Smith, CFO of Intel, notes in the CFO.com article below that education of the U.S. workforce has been steadily deteriorating. “Math and science curricula in primary-school systems in the United States are comparatively weak, he said, and the population of university students pursuing math, science, and engineering has dropped.” According to Smith, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 focused on public works and was a good step, but doesn’t come close to China’s stimulus bill, which focused on broadband and wireless infrastructure to close the digital divide.

Technology as a national agenda is crucial to creating a knowledge-worker economy. That is why our revision of Making the Most of High School includes two new chapters, including one on technology in the 21st century. If students learn to work effectively with the technologies of today they will become more versatile and it will be easier to adapt to the frequent advances in technology. To request a free copy of Making the Most of High School call our toll free # at 1.877.737.8510 or email contact@lifebound.com.

ARTICLE:

Intel CFO Sees U.S. Losing Battle for High-Tech Jobs
by Vincent Ryan
CFO.com
April 22, 2010

In the fourth quarter of this year, chipmaker Intel’s new wafer-fabrication plant in the city of Dalian in Northeast China, a $2.5 billion capital investment three years in the making, will come online. The factory will produce chipsets to support Intel’s microprocessor business and will boast a workforce of 1,200 people.

Intel received a typically rich package of grants and tax incentives from China in order to build the plant there, according to Stacy Smith, the company’s CFO. “When we are thinking about building a factory, almost every government of a sizable, mature economy reaches out to us and provides financial incentives,” he told CFO.

To view this entire article visit www.cfo.com

Carol’s summary:
The U.S. is moving closer to adopting a uniform set of world-class standards for all schools k-12. This week a panel comprised of the nation’s governors and state school superintendents unveiled their proposal for year by year benchmarks citing these examples in the article below: “. . . fifth graders would be expected to explain the differences between drama and prose, and to identify elements of drama like characters, dialogue and stage directions. Seventh graders would study, among other math concepts, proportional relationships, operations with rational numbers and solutions for linear equations.”

For over a decade, LifeBound has promoted similar objectives through our stair-step programs for grades 5-12, which builds the following 21st century skills:

o Reading
o Writing
o Critical and creative thinking
o Emotional intelligence
o ACT/SAT prep
o Strategies for teachers to anticipate and plan successful transitions at each grade level.

Our books are used in advisory periods, summer reading academies, and as supplements to English and Social Studies classes. All of our curricula are coordinated to the national American School Counselor Association (ASCA) standard and 21st century skills framework. To receive review copies of our books, please call our toll free # at 1.877.737.8510 or send an email to contact@lifebound.com

ARTICLE
NYTIMES
March 10, 2010
By Sam Dillon

A panel of educators convened by the nation’s governors and state school superintendents proposed a uniform set of academic standards on Wednesday, laying out their vision for what all the nation’s public school children should learn in math and English, year by year, from kindergarten to high school graduation.

The new proposals could transform American education, replacing the patchwork of standards ranging from mediocre to world-class that have been written by local educators in every state.

To view entire article visit
http://nyti.ms/cT2LJD

Carol’s Summary:

There’s more dismal news for America’s schools as international benchmarks show the U.S. lagging behind its global counterparts. According to the New York Times article below, “a greater proportion of students in more and more countries graduate from high school and college and score higher on achievement tests than students in the United States.” In yesterday’s address to a panel of U.S. policy lawmakers who plan to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – the main law governing federal policy on public schools – Andreas Schleicher, a senior education official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD, and one of the foremost experts on comparing national school systems in the world’s 30 richest countries, presented these facts to the Senate education committee:

• Canada’s 15-year-old students are, on average, more than one school year ahead of American 15-year-olds
• Finland has the world’s “best performing education system,” partly because of its highly effective way of recruiting, training and supporting teachers.
• Only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Mexico now have lower high school completion rates than the U.S (about 7 in 10 American high school students earn a diploma).
• South Korea has achieved a 96 percent high school graduation rate, the world’s highest.
• Poland, Mr. Schleicher said, is improving its education system most rapidly. In less than a decade, it raised the literacy skills of its 15-year-olds by the equivalent of almost a school year. “If the U.S. would raise the performance of schools by a similar amount,” he said, “that could translate into a long-term economic value of over 40 trillion dollars.”

The committee also heard from Charles Butt, chief executive of a supermarket chain in Texas, who said employers there faced increasing difficulties in hiring qualified young workers. “The blame for America’s sagging academic achievement does not lie solely with public schools,” Mr. Butt said, but also with dysfunctional families and a culture that undervalues education. Schools are inheriting an overentertained, distracted student,” he said.

LifeBound’s comprehensive approach to helping students achieve college and career success includes programs for parents that help them value education and give them the tools to communicate this to their children. Additionally, we offer books and curriculum for Summer Academies and year-long programs in districts across the country that help students grow their critical and creative thinking skills and develop emotional and social intelligence. Until districts adopt a rigorous model of learning that challenges students to think and plan for future success, we will continue to lose ground in education and ultimately our competitive edge in the world’s marketplace.

How can districts create new standards and curriculum that help American students catch up to their global counterparts?

How can we instill a sense of what is possible into the hearts and minds of our students?

How can we transform our nation’s entertainment culture into a culture of learning?

Article

New York Times
Many Nations Passing U.S. in Education, Expert Says
By SAM DILLON
March 9, 2010

One of the world’s foremost experts on comparing national school systems told lawmakers on Tuesday that many other countries were surpassing the United States in educational attainment, including Canada, where he said 15-year-old students were, on average, more than one school year ahead of American 15-year-olds.

America’s education advantage, unrivaled in the years after World War II, is eroding quickly as a greater proportion of students in more and more countries graduate from high school and college and score higher on achievement tests than students in the United States, said Andreas Schleicher, a senior education official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, which helps coordinate policies for 30 of the world’s richest countries.

To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Many American colleges and universities have longtime connections to aid work in Haiti and since the devastating earthquake earlier this week, are providing financial assistance and on the ground emergency relief. As the article below cites, “The largest effort to put teams of university doctors on the ground has come from the University of Miami, which began sending medical professionals to Haiti the day after the earthquake.” Because of its proximity to Haiti, Miami has dispatched several flights each day back and forth, transporting doctors and supplies to Port-au-Prince and bringing severely injured patients to Miami hospitals.

The program director for emergency and disaster management and homeland security at American Military University, Christopher M. Reynolds, said, “I knew of more than a dozen students and faculty members in Haiti, doing such work as logistics operations and search-and-rescue missions through the military. The university’s students get course extensions on the basis of their deployment papers.” Similarly, Wallace E. Boston Jr., president of the parent American Public University system, wrote the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to pledge their support. He launched an e-mail to more than 1,000 students and alumni informing them that he was creating a list where people can submit their skills and availability to FEMA. Dr. Kurt K. Rhynhart, a general surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, said in an e-mail message from Haiti, “I have never seen so much poverty and am humbled by it,” “But the people are the most friendly, proud, and thankful I have ever met. I am certainly glad I came and am sure this won’t be the last time.”

Disasters like this are strong reminders that we live in a global world. As educators, we play a key role in helping students envision the difference they can make as future professionals. Students tend to be more motivated and engaged in the classroom when they understand how education connects to careers and perhaps more importantly, why we work. While everyone needs a job to support themselves and their families, it’s the ability to use our gifts and talents to help other people that give real meaning to college and career success. Let’s champion our students to do and be their best. There’s a big world out there that needs them.

ARTICLE:

The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 21, 2010
American Universities Rush to the Front Lines in Haiti
By Andrea Fuller

Brian W. Loggie, a professor of surgery at the Creighton University School of Medicine, has gotten little sleep in the past week.

Days after a devastating magnitude-7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti, Dr. Loggie and several of his colleagues arrived at a medical facility in the Dominican Republic, 30 miles from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Since then, they have been operating on victims and trying to manage the flow of the hundreds of people overwhelming the facility.

“What we’ve been seeing are just many, many, many patients, a lot of orthopedic injuries, a lot of open fractures that are infected,” Dr. Loggie said in a telephone interview. “We’re seeing so many amputations.”

There are dozens more doctors like Dr. Loggie spread across Port-au-Prince and nearby towns, performing surgeries in makeshift hospitals and calming frantic patients. While many American colleges are providing financial assistance to Haiti, some, like Creighton, have sent teams of nurses and surgeons.

To view this entire article visit www.chronicle.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

The paideia teaching model still survives today in Cincinnati, Chicago and Chattanooga school districts, as implicated in today’s article from ASCD’s Smart Brief report. The paideia model uses the Socratic method by engaging students in long discussions and classical debate to build critical thinking skills, debating/verbal skills and the ability to synthesize information. Teachers coach students through a series of difficult questions to help guide them to the best possible answers or perhaps to a new revelation. Asking powerful questions is the core of academic coaching, and LifeBound offers coaching classes throughout the year at its home offices in Denver, Colorado. These seminars teach educators and administrators how to ask powerful questions of themselves and their students, which tap internal motivation and boost emotional intelligence.

No Child Left Behind and content-based teaching formulated for standardized testing has replaced paideia in most public schools throughout the U.S., but with today’s emphasis on 21st century skills that promote critical thinking, teamwork and creativity, the Socratic method may make its way back into mainstream education. Chad Flaig, a teacher at Shroder Paideia High School in Cincinnati, says, “That’s one of the things as a teacher in seminar [debate], you are not the information provider. You are just kind of the guide, and sometimes they’ll go down a different path. You just kind of go with it, and the big thing is to make them think and get them out of their comfort zone.”

In order to compete for jobs in this country and around the world, the next generation of students will be forced to stretch themselves and venture into the global marketplace where employers value analytical, creative and practical intelligence. LifeBound’s book, Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers, is designed to help students develop the requisite skills for college and career success. To request a review copy of this book, or to find out more about our academic coaching classes, contact the LifeBound office by calling toll free 1.877.737.8510 or sending an email to contact@lifebound.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

ARTICLE:

Cincinnati.Com » Education
January 2, 2010
Where good old-fashioned debate still rules school
PAIDEIA TEACHING IN CINCINNATI
By Ben Fischer

Sports fan and Shroder Paideia High School senior Brandon Ross thought departed Cincinnati Bearcats football coach Brian Kelly was a disloyal turncoat before a Dec. 16 class with teacher Chad Flaig.

Then, with the desks arranged in a circle, Flaig asked tough questions: What does loyalty require? Can you be loyal to only one group at a time? What about loyalty to yourself? Is it possible that loyalty to his players led Kelly to downplay the Notre Dame job until after the crucial Pittsburgh game, avoiding distractions? Or does being loyal require absolute honesty at all times?

The teens didn’t have all the answers.

But they debated Kelly’s departure for the entire class, moderating their opinions when Flaig made a good point and pushing back when they disagreed.

Afterward, Ross wasn’t so sure.

To view this entire article visit www.news.cincinnati.com

The term “millennials” was coined by Neil Howe and William Strauss in their 2000 book, Millennial Rising. Although each generation has its own unique characteristics, the schism between millennials and other generations centers on technology. While demographers debate just how influential digital technology has been on the millennial personality, no one doubts its profound impact. It is certainly the great unifier of millennials from places as diverse as Geneva, Japan, and Jersey. More than any other factor, it has united the generation, even globally.

Today’s article from the Chronicle of Higher Education offers several opinions by people who have studied this new breed of young people. The researchers who study them propose findings that contradict each other, perhaps because the experts themselves are a product of their own generation. The reporter, Eric Hoover, writes: “Depending on the prediction, this generation either will save the planet, one soup kitchen at a time, or crash-land on a lonely moon where nobody ever reads.” Such contradicting arguments should make us wonder whether an entire generation can be effectively stereotyped. With colleges and corporations spending immense amounts of money on experts to tell them how to attract today’s twenty somethings, what implications will these stereotypes have on our higher education institutions?

Following are statistics of millennials that do not stereotype:

• Referred to as the “Internet Generation,” they speak digital as a second language: 94% use the Internet for school research and 78% believe the Internet helps them with school work (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008).
• The vast majority of young people are not in college full time. Only an estimated 25% of 18-24-year-olds attend a four-year college full time (U.S. Department of Education).
• 44% of college students are male (For the first time in history more girls attend college than boys; Newsweek, January 30, 2006).

While it’s useful to determine patterns to help us understand trends, when it comes to students, learning is dynamic. The advent of a new generation of students and increasingly sophisticated technology has left many teachers separated from their students. Similarly, most faculty teach their students in ways they were taught, and these methods may not be reaching today’s students. Indeed, technology has emerged as the salient characteristic of the millennial generation, but like all students, they are as individual as their fingerprints.

• What unique characteristics can make millennials successful in the academic and economic world of the 21st century?
• How might we better understand these characteristics and translate them into specific pedagogical practices?
• What important principles from cognitive science and pedagogy should faculty know and utilize in their teaching?

ARTICLE:

October 11, 2009
The Millennial Muddle
How stereotyping students became a thriving industry and a bundle of contradictions
By Eric Hoover

Kids these days. Just look at them. They’ve got those headphones in their ears and a gadget in every hand. They speak in tongues and text in code. They wear flip-flops everywhere. Does anyone really understand them?

Only some people do, or so it seems. They are experts who have earned advanced degrees, dissected data, and published books. If the minds of college students are a maze, these specialists sell maps.

Ask them to explain today’s teenagers and twentysomethings. Invite them to your campus to describe this generation’s traits. Just make sure that they don’t all show up at the same time. They would argue, contradict one another, and leave you more baffled than ever.

Figuring out young people has always been a chore, but today it’s also an industry. Colleges and corporations pay experts big bucks to help them understand the fresh-faced hordes that pack the nation’s dorms and office buildings. As in any business, there’s variety as well as competition. One speaker will describe youngsters as the brightest bunch of do-gooders in modern history. Another will call them self-involved knuckleheads. Depending on the prediction, this generation either will save the planet, one soup kitchen at a time, or crash-land on a lonely moon where nobody ever reads.

To view this entire article visit www.chronicle.com