Abstract
On the Web
Inflation Calculator
https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Have you ever heard your parents or grandparents talk about “the good old days” when gas was only $1.50 a gallon, or when hamburgers only cost 50 cents? If you know the year they are referencing, you can use this website to transform that price into the equivalent of today’s dollars. The website also includes a link that explains how the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the consumer price index, which is used to measure inflation.
PBS Kids
This website features the characters from popular PBS TV shows such as Super Why!, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Dinosaur Train, Donkey Hodie, Curious George, and more. There are videos, stories, art, and songs that students can select and play based on each show. There are also dance party games, puzzles, reading games, music games, engineering games, and even games about feelings and space. Parents can sign up for a weekly newsletter to receive craft ideas, activities, parenting tips, recipes, and other resources.
Rader’s Chem4Kids
http://www.chem4kids.com/files/elem_pertable.html
This website explains the periodic table according to the atomic structure of each element. Students can learn about the periods and groups, along with the halogens, noble gases, alkali metals, alkaline earth, transition metals, biochemistry, chemical reactions, and more. There is a quiz that students can take to test their knowledge after reviewing the website. There are also links to other sites if students want to learn more about astronomy, biology, earth science, and other science and math topics.
Notable
The Baylor School of Education and the Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development is launching the Baylor Talent Identification Program (TIP). Dr Jennifer Robins, Director of the Center, has collaborated with other gifted centers at universities across the United States to ensure that gifted students continue to be identified and served through talent search programs after the closing in 2020 of one of the nation’s best-known programs, Duke TIP. For more information, visit https://www.baylor.edu/soe/giftededucation/index.php?id=983000%3Cbr%20/%3E
The University of Michigan’s Teaching Works identifies 19 teaching practices that are “high-leverage” for beginning and early career teachers. A high-leverage practice is an action or task central to teaching. Some of these practices include leading a group discussion, eliciting and interpreting student thinking, coordinating and adjusting instruction during a lesson, and setting up and managing small group work. For more information, visit https://www.teachingworks.org/work-of-teaching/high-leverage-practices
Teaching Controversial Issues
Exploring political questions from multiple perspectives is important to a democratic education (Pace et al., 2022). Classrooms are a safe space where students can learn to exchange perspectives with peers from diverse backgrounds, identify credible sources, and weigh evidence. Pace et al. (2022) has developed an approach to teaching controversial issues consisting of eight elements:
Cultivate a supportive environment. Create a classroom culture of trust and respect where active listening, respectful dissent, sensitivity toward others, and evaluation of knowledge sources are practiced.
Select authentic issues. Begin with less contentious issues and build to politically and emotionally charged issues. Relevant issues are selected that are open versus settled.
Prepare thoroughly. Have a broad and deep knowledge of the issue to develop a robust purpose, rationale, and goal for each lesson.
Choose resources and pedagogies. Select rich resources to stimulate thinking and choose pedagogical approaches allowing many voices to be heard.
Think through teacher stance and roles. Assume roles to advance students’ abilities in critically examining and discussing different perspectives, develop well-informed views, and understand that additional knowledge may prompt them to change their minds.
Guide discussion. Facilitate student interactions using questioning, discussion formats, and protocols.
Communicate proactively. In advance of the discussion of controversial issues, communicate with parents and administrators to let them know that the goal is for students to understand multiple perspectives and form their own views.
Addressing emotions. Provide a space to process emotions, use de-escalation techniques when needed, and get students to think metacognitively about emotionally entrenched perspectives and social divisions.
First-Generation College Students
The Education Week Research Center conducted a survey of 1500 high-achieving high school graduates (Najarro, 2022). The survey found that more than 20 percent of low-income 2021 graduates reported they changed their college or job plans to care for a family member and 14 percent reported they never received support from their high school on questions related to financial aid. Alma Lopez, a first-generation college student and the 2022 American School Counselor Association School Counselor of the Year, offers this advice to help students be the first in their families to attend college:
Don’t assume what information the student can access. Families may be limited in their understanding of different systems since they have never applied to college. Counselors need to provide as much information as possible about scholarships, work-study programs, and other opportunities.
Get parents involved. Counselors can help parents learn and be part of their child’s education journey by arranging college visits and having them share in the learning experience.
Demystify the college experience. Educators can work with the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program that partners middle school students with college students to help them learn how to study effectively, how to communicate, and how to be organized. Students should have opportunities to ask specific questions about college life.
Long-Term Effects of Pre-School Programs
With the possibility of funding universal preschool, educators, policy makers, economists, and politicians have entered the discussion. Do high-quality preschool programs have the potential to produce lasting impacts on skills and improve long-term outcomes? Are they worth the cost? Researchers who studied the Boston preschool experience reported these results (Gray-Lobe et al., 2021): Preschool attendance increases the likelihood that students successfully complete high school. Enrollment in preschool raises the likelihood that students take the SAT. Preschool attendance boosts the likelihood of an SAT reasoning score in the top quartile. Preschool attendance decreases discipline referrals and influences improvements in student behavior.
These findings illustrate that high-quality universal preschool programs have the potential to improve educational attainment for student populations, particularly those from low-income backgrounds.