Good Teacher Magazine 2016, Term 3

Term Three 2016

“The best teachers don’t give you the answers...

They just point the way ... and let you make your own choices.”

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Index 3 Your Soapbox

4

Snapchat, Sexting and Cyberbullying

Drs Jennifer Charteris & Sue Gregory 5

A ‘crappy’ visit to the local library

Secret Teacher

8

Go figure — Yale mathematician is a TV game show pro

Jim Shelton

9

Classroom, Disrupted

Stanford University

10

Understanding the Spectrum

Rebecca Burgess

12

Study finds children in preschools

Leslie Booren

20

Da Vinci Machines

MOTAT

22

Calling all environmental champions

Canon

27

The poor can’t learn?

Laurie Loper

28

ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2016 EUROPE

John Cleese

31

Harambe’s Legacy

Elaine Le Sueur

32

Children with learning difficulties improve

34

Nature Black Pen Illustrations

Alfred Basha

36

Just Keep Swimming

Steph Jankowski

44

Lewis Carroll’s Rules of Letter-Writing

Maria Popova

46

Employment concerns emphasize continued value of international study

51

10 Tips And Tricks To Learn Any Language

John-Erik Jordan

52

‘Hangarau - Technology in Aotearoa’

MOTAT

54

Stanford study shows how digital math games can teach

Edmund L. Andrews

56

The Teacher Made This Young Student Cry in Class

58

The Lunar Cycle Displayed Through 15,000 Colorful Origami Birds

Kate Sierzputowski

60

Make a Date With Data

Susan M. Brookhart

70

Young New Zealanders Making Films For Good

72

Finding the Best Value in Online Education

Michelle LaBrosse

74

French Artist Transforms Boring City

Renata

76

Roger’s Rant

Roger

84

Front Cover: Back Cover:

Lunar Cycle in origame birds... Photo Mathgoth Gallerie Adelaide Zoo... Meditating meercat

Good Teacher Magazine would like to acknowledge the unknown designers and craftspeople internationally for the some of the images and art in the magazine, every care has been taken to identify and acknowledge artists/photographers... however this is not always successful... most were collated from a wide range of internet sources.

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Your Soapbox!

“

” If you want to have YOUR SAY please email your offering to: soapbox@goodteacher.co.nz

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Snapchat, Sexting and Cyberbullying – What do we need parents to know?

Dr Jennifer Charteris and Dr Sue Gregory University for New England, Armidale, Australia

Some of us were lucky to own a camera growing up and our teen years were punctuated by parents moaning about the time taken talking on the phone, via a landline. Callers who wanted to contact us would have to run the gauntlet with gatekeeping parents who answered the phone.

How times have changed!

With the advent of smartphones and tablets, young people are awash in visual images. Young people, now experts in multimedia production, curate photographs and videos that narrate their worlds. Immersed in a plethora of digital images, they use Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to story the minutiae of their daily lives.

But what are the implications for educators?

And how is this influencing the changing cultures of young people themselves?

Snapchat is a disappearing media that was developed in 2011 and marketed to the 13 to 34 age bracket. With 100 million people using the application every day, it has taken hold among young people (Ingram, 2015).

Although there has been a lot of research on Facebook, there are few studies into the use of Snapchat among young people and the implications for educators.

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 5

Snapchat enables the user to send an image with a timed release to a recipient. This image, set to self-destruct after a few moments (aka Mission Impossible), hones the recipient’s attention. Knowing it will vanish, the user takes notice. Thus, Snapchat works its magic in the youth attention economy. Big businesses like it because they connect with young audiences. Celebrities access it to connect with their coterie of acolytes. Young people use it to pass on ‘hilarious’ images, forge social network communities, cement relationships with peers and ‘hook up’ with someone they find attractive.

Researchers in a multi-disciplinary team from the University of New England have conducted research into the use of disappearing media among young people since 2014. Interested in the use of disappearing media in schools, we are undertaking research into the impact of Snapchat on youth well-being. We have observed that disappearing media like Snapchat can offer useful and rich social opportunities for creative image sharing. Young people engage in authorship through their media production – using crazy filters to send each other ‘funhouse images’, constructing, adapting and disseminating images to peer networks. These cyber networks provide spaces for creativity. However, if we look closely into the use disappearing media among young people, we learn about both power relations and teen peer culture.

The research, conducted in accordance with University ethics procedures, investigates the experiences of university students, school principals, teachers, school pupils and parents. Data has been gathered from a survey sent to all New South Wales schools (Public, Catholic and Independent) and interviews have been conducted with school leaders.

With school principal permission we have also undertaken student focus group interviews.

Face-to-face sexual experimentation takes on a cyber dimension for young people and when images are passed on, the consequences can be extreme.

Snapchat can be a vehicle for sharing sexually explicit material. Throughout history, young people have flirted and experimented sexually. Technology serves as an accelerator. Snapchat can offer some degree of privacy if sensitive images are not retained by the recipient through screen capturing software. Young people can take risks in sending sexually explicit images, assuming that they will disappear. Yet these images can be captured through screen grabbing software and consequently go viral.

Students in the study described how the media has been used for bullying and cyber sexual harassment.

When sensitive pictures are captured, kept, disseminated and recirculated, it can be hurtful and damaging for those involved. It is often the most vulnerable young women who are at risk; those who seek approval of peers or the reciprocation of affection. With double standards around girls’ sexuality, there can be shame and humiliation when images are circulated and this can be particularly 6 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

damaging for girls. There can also be coercion for images. Of course, the disappearing nature of the media can also make it difficult to track incidences of both cyber-bullying cyber-harassment. The evidence just disappears.

The school leaders interviewed, particularly those in secondary schools, said that they deal with issues associated with cyber-sexting (sending inappropriate photos, images or text messages) and cyber-bullying on a regular basis. For educators, it can be challenging to broker Snapchat related issues with parents who may be in denial.

Teachers are often the first port of call for parents who are concerned about their children’s use of Snapchat.

We, the researchers, make a few suggestions as a starting point for parents. The following suggestions may be useful when talking with parents about an approach to take with their children (see boxed text).

The project is due to be scaled up to all schools in Australia and New Zealand. The researchers would like to hear from educators and parents who have had experience with Snapchat in schooling contexts. If you would like to be part of the ongoing research please contact the principal researcher Sue Gregory, email: sue.gregory@une.edu.au.

The authors are part of cross disciplinary research team from the University of New England Schools of Education, Law and Social Work. The team, Dr Gregory, Dr Charteris, Dr Masters, Associate Professor Kennedy and Associate Professor Maple, are funded through a University of New England Seed Grant.

Ingram, (2015). Snapchat’s video views are exploding, and it’s closing in on Facebook. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2015/11/09/snapchat-video/ Jennifer Charteris is Senior Lecturer of Pedagogy in the University of New England School of Education.

Jennifer’s particular research trajectory is in the area of politics in Education. In relation to this, she conducts research in the area of teacher and student learning/e-learning, identity subject formation and agency. Critical and poststructural theories inform much of her work. She researches in collaboration with educational leaders (in schools), teachers and students and also been involved in a trans-national study with colleagues in Aotearoa/NZ and Australia.

Sue Gregory is Chair of Research, Education Scholar, eLearning, ePedagogy and Innovation Research Network leader and lectures in ICT in the School of Education at the University of New England and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Sue teaches pre service and post graduate education students how to incorporate technology into their teaching. She has been using Second Life by applying her virtual world knowledge to expose her on and off campus students to the learning opportunities in virtual worlds since 2007 and has been Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working

Group since 2009.

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Guidance for parents: You do not need to be an expert in using the media yourself to learn how young people use it with their peers. Snapchat is a secret currency that is designed to exclude populations – those who are not in the peer group or adults. So when brokering a discussion, don’t freak out – be calm and build trust.

Start a relaxed conversation by appreciating any light and humorous examples your child may be prepared to share. Let the conversation turn to the other examples – you may like to use some profiled in the media. For example you could use Megan’s story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKgg35YbC4.

This may help you to highlight the implications and consequences to your child of having potentially damaging sexually explicit images in circulation.

• Help your child to develop empathy for the other person on the receiving end of bullying images. Emphasise that it is important not to keep or pass on hurtful material.

• Young people can experience enormous peer pressure to send explicit images. Discuss how this sort of ‘flirting’ is an enormous risk, just for the sake of popularity. Explain the importance of resisting coercion when someone puts on pressure for an image to be sent.

• Draw links between cyber-sexting and cyber-bulling. Encourage your child to consider how it feels to be the person with an intimate image sent out to almost everyone they know. Highlight that a bit of fun - sending on a ‘nude’ can be devastating for the emotional well-being of the young person concerned and their family. It can be very unpleasant for teachers and principals who are placed in a position of brokering these images with distressed families and the police.

• Your child could be experiencing deep humiliation and regret themselves with an ‘out of control’ image. Discuss seeking help from a councillor if your child is experiencing stress, anxiety or depression as a result of their experience. If your child doesn’t want to talk about sexting or cyberbullying, express your concerns anyway and emphasise that they can come to you with any problems that arise.

You may want to approach the school and/or the police if your child is experiencing ongoing cyber-bullying or cyber-harassment.

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 7

Secret Teacher A ‘crappy’ visit to the local library Not a recent story, but one I feel just has got to be shared. As a school we have very good links with our local community, one aspect in particular being the local library. We visit said library on a weekly basis, taking it in turns between the classes to take the children, read a story and the children each get to choose a story to bring home with them.

Imagine just how pleased I was on one particular morning when I discovered it was my turn to take the children to the library.

On fancy dress day.

PJ fancy dress day.

Brilliant, not only did I have to walk my children through the town center in a not very appealing high-visibility jacket, I also had to do it in my Pyjamas; COMPLETE with slippers.

Passing various members of the public, laughing it off; yes yes the children do look cute, yes yes the perks of the job and all that, yes yes I am SO enthusiastic about this library visit right now…

Sat in the library, not quite managed to finish my story when one of the children pipes up ‘Eeeewwww whats THAT?!’ I look to a nice spot in the middle of the children to find a rather large pile of … poop. Wonderful.

see the librarian hasn’t noticed the commotion in the corner of the library I smile sweetly at my fabulous teaching assistant who very discreetly takes out a tissue, picks up the incriminating object and heads in search of a toilet (Which I later discovered she never found and instead had to hand it to a librarian assistant who, unknowing of what the object was, put the ’tissue’ in the nearest bin. Whoops.)

Now for the hard part – who’s parent is going to bill me for a new pair of PJ’s?

Only 1 way to go about this – process of elimination. Any children in onesies?

Head to one side of the room.

Elasticated ankles? Join the onesie team.

Down to a select few children, glaring back at me with innocent eyes… yet each denying their part in the crime.

Now I feel at this point I should tell you, this is more of a confession on my behalf…I would like to sincerely apologise to the parents of whichever child I failed to figure out had gone home with…let’s just say not the cleanest of PJ’s on that particular dress up day…

Secret Teacher xx http://www.thesecretteacher.co.uk/ Facebook: Secret Teacher

‘Ok does somebody need to go to the toilet?’. No answer. ‘Has someone has a little accident?’ Nothing. Checking to 8 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

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Go figure — Yale mathematician is a TV game show pro

By Jim Shelton

Yale mathematician Nathan Kaplan has packed up his polynomials and hit the TV game show circuit. Kaplan, a Gibbs Assistant Professor in Mathematics, will be a contestant on the syndicated TV program “Let’s Ask America”.

He participated in the show via Skype from his Dunham Lab office, with a Yale pennant and Pascal’s Triangle — expanding rows of binomial coefficients as visually entertaining as any TV graphic — in the background.

The show polls Americans on a variety of topics and asks contestants to predict the responses. “I was the ‘math guy,’” Kaplan explained. “The other contestants were a new mom from Ohio, a fitness model from California, and a Colorado youth pastor who plays the guitar.” The episode was recorded last fall, but true to the game show code of honor, Kaplan, 29, has not revealed the outcome. He’s no novice to the format, last year, he competed on the Ryan Seacrest-hosted “Million Second Quiz,” and in 2009 he competed on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” He estimated he’s won $25,000 from his TV gamesmanship.

“I was in particular excited about his ‘Million Second Quiz’ appearance,” said Giulio Tiozzo, Kaplan’s colleague in the Department of Mathematics.

“Unfortunately, he lost at the tiebreaker, but he was definitely on top of things. He’s extremely friendly and fun. I think that makes him a great candidate for a game show.”

Tiozzo said he’ll be rooting for Kaplan this time around, as well. He predicted that many of Kaplan’s students will be intrigued, too. Win or lose, Tiozzo said, it will be a victory over the social stereotype of mathematicians as cold, nerdy characters devoid of creativity.

In a larger sense, being on TV is part of Kaplan’s mission to promote math in the public realm. By his calculation, math is much too joyful to be confined to the classroom.

Friday in the basement of the Museum of Mathematics, in Manhattan, playing 3D tic-tac-toe with visitors; it’s also why he once trekked out to Long Island on a Saturday to talk about sphere packing (a geometry term for arrangements of non-overlapping spheres in a defined space) with a local math circle.

A few years ago, Kaplan taught a mini course at Harvard on “Math and Games.” He’s fluent in the online and tabletop strategy game Connect Four and Sudoku puzzles, and he’s highly interested in the math behind the board game Mastermind. “I have some fun projects in mind,” he said.

One thing that puzzles him, however, is the notion that math is dull. How can math be boring, he asked, when it is at the heart of everything from baseball statistics to the latest smartphone app? Kaplan suggested that some folks may not be giving math enough of a chance to discover its natural pizazz.

All of which brings him back to the matter of TV game shows. Whether he’s traveled to a TV studio or participated from the comfort of his campus office, he’s found the experience to be positive. “Those shows are about having fun,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to present serious, academic work, as exciting and fun.”

It’s also a pretty small community of contestants.

“I know someone who was on ‘Jeopardy!’ over the summer last year,” Kaplan said. “I met her in the green room on ‘Millionaire.’ You know, your conditional probability of being on a second game show is much higher after being on the first one.”

Mathematician Nathan Kaplan sometimes likes to play Connect Four against himself.

That’s why he spent a

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 9

Classroom, Disrupted

By studying how students create, educators transform pedagogy.

Anne Keeling

FAB FEATS: Juliana Cook, ’15 (above), works in Blikstein’s lab, where creations range from sculptures to 3-D printing projects (see right).

Imagine walking into a high school classroom and, instead of rows of desks and chairs facing a whiteboard, you see workbenches.

Stationed around the room is an array of machines: a 3-D printer, a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter and a milling machine.

Metal drawers and storage shelves are stocked with wood, resins, burlap, glue, machinable wax, acrylic and dozens of other supplies.

You have entered a fab lab.

What’s that? Short for “fabrication laboratory,” the concept—born at MIT in 2001—was to create an environment full of multipurpose tools where one could build nearly anything. The idea caught on, and now there are close to 600 fab labs worldwide, according to fablabs.io, a website that supports and organizes the fab lab movement. The underlying goal is to provide broad access to modern means of invention.

Inherent in the opportunity to create in these spaces is the opportunity to learn, and to learn about learning.

After arriving at Stanford in 2009, assistant professor 10 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

Paulo Blikstein, once a student in the original MIT fab lab, became the first to translate the concept into an education research context when he opened the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab at the Graduate School of Education. Appearing in some ways like a typical fab lab, TLTL exists to design and research new technologies for education and to study the hands-on learning process.

Several years in, the lab buzzes with a rotating cast of PhD students, postdocs, interns, collaborators and staff. The fruits of their labors include the Hapkit, a low-cost programmable device that helps students learn about motions and forces through touch; the GoGoBoard, open-source hardware used for educational robotics and science experiments; and an inexpensive Lego-style kit that students can use to build simple machines.

Blikstein’s team is also pushing the boundaries of student assessment. Having acknowledged the limits of stand-ard-ized testing, the tech-savvy group is experimenting with devices that track students’ gestures, eyeball movements, facial expressions and heat output; they then download the observations as massive data sets and use supercomputers to digest the information and locate patterns. The results help them discern what behaviors and characteristics best guide the learning process—findings that, in turn, help them develop alternative curricula for schools and train teachers how to implement hands-on learning environments.

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Philosophically, Blikstein and his lab mates are at odds with the traditional public school teaching model. The world is changing, he says, and traditional teaching methods don’t prepare students for the new environment.

Photos: Tamer Shabani, ‘14

“I think the divide of the 21st century is the pedagogical divide. The kids that are exposed to more modern pedagogies, like project-based learning, interest-driven learning—kids who are allowed to have an idea, do a project, learn how to do robotics, learn how to do more experiential science, pursue their own interests, go deep into things—are the kids in private, affluent schools where they have the freedom and the equipment and teachers to promote that kind of learning,” Blikstein says.

“The kids that are in public schools are limited to the traditional pedagogies, which are just ‘sit and listen to the teacher.’ . . . Obviously, the skills that those affluent kids in those private schools are getting are the skills that will get them the better jobs, the leadership positions. They will be the creative leaders and the inventors of the 21st and 22nd centuries, and the kids who are not having the opportunities to follow their passions and build things and make things—they will be 20th-century workers in a mid-21st-century economy.”

Not one to sit by idly, Blikstein founded the FabLearn Program (formerly Fab Lab@School), which has built

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digital fabrication labs in public middle schools and high schools in the United States, Russia and Thailand. With a grant from Google, five labs have been built in public schools near Stanford, including one at East Palo Alto Academy.

Jesus Navarrete, a 2015 graduate of the high school, is one of two students who became involved with Blikstein’s lab as an intern after his junior year.

He continued on during his senior year as a mentor to other students from the academy. That year, his science class came to Stanford each week to learn physics through projects they did at the lab.

Navarrete and his friend Miguel Lopez teamed up to design the fab lab built at their school. While Lopez went on to study engineering and computer science as a freshman at Cal State-Los Angeles, Navarrete has stayed with the lab, spending about 30 hours a week assisting the researchers there, working on his own projects, and planning for a potential future in design or engineering.

Along the way, he’s learned about his own learning style. “The way I learn is I need to be able to work on a computer and work hands-on equally,” Navarrete says. “It’s important to learn what kind of blend of learning is best for you.”

http://alumni.stanford.edu/

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Understanding the Spectrum I hear alot of people misinterpreting or misusing the term ‘autism spectrum’. So for Autism Acceptance week, I decided to make a comic to help explain the term and how it affects things.

Archie is one of the reasons I became so interested/knowledgeable in autism (I like to go all out in research when I write characters for comics) so he’s the one presenting everything!

uced d o r t n I hie!

by Arc

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Rebecca Burgess

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Last but not least, some explanation for anyone unfamiliar with some of the language used…

Neurotypical = the majority/average brain, in context to this a non-autistic person Neurodiverse = the opposite, but some people use this term to refer to more then just autism, things such as dyslexia, adhd etc. savant skills = being extremely good in one area of thinking, I guess the most common one is being extremely good at math and having a perfect memory.

Also, my depiction of ‘the spectrum’ is simplified (to be used as a starting point/simple explanation), if you look into it there are alot of different traits or factors that make up the spectrum! www.rebeccaburgess.co.uk theoraah.tumblr.com

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 19

Study finds children in preschoo than those in home-based care

Susanna Loeb

Susanna Loeb, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, says that differences in quality among early childhood daycare settings directly affect children’s school readiness.

New research shows that children in “formal” daycare settings have more educated teachers and are better prepared academically.

Children receiving formal, classroom-based preschool receive significantly higher quality care and have better reading and math skills than their peers who receive informal childcare before kindergarten, according to a new study published this week in Child Development.

Currently most young children in the United States experience regular non-parental care — about 50 percent of infants and over 80 percent of four-yearolds. The settings for these experiences vary widely from “formal” classroom settings such as full-day pre-kindergarten, Head Start and private childcare centers to more “informal” settings such as licensed family day care homes, nannies or babysitters.

Although more and more children are attending preschool centers, about half of 3- to 5-year-olds experience some informal care on a regular basis.

Relatively little is known about the quality of the informal sector and how it compares with that of preschool centers, which are more highly regulated.

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According to researchers from Stanford University, the University of Virginia, Cornell University and the Urban Institute, who used nationally representative data to examine quality differences across formal and informal settings, there are substantial differences not only with respect to quality, but also with respect to children’s reading and math skills when they enter kindergarten.

“Our study examined differences across a long list of quality measures,” said Daphna Bassok, assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and associate director of the research center EdPolicyWorks. “We highlight striking differences with respect to teachers’ education and training in early childhood.”

In formal settings 56 percent of caregivers have a college degree in early childhood education compared with 9 percent of caregivers in the informal settings.

Caregivers in the formal sector tend to have about three more years of formal education and are also far more likely to participate in any ongoing training.

“We also found that beyond their credentials, teachers in preschool settings provide a more developmentally stimulating environment,” added Bassok, who received her PhD from Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2009. “In many home-based settings children spend non-trivial portions of their day watching television.”

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ols receive higher-quality care

By Leslie Booren For example, while formal caregivers read to children every day, caregivers in informal settings did so less frequently, and the same was true for math activities.

In formal settings, caregivers reported that children rarely watched any television, on average less than seven minutes per day. In contrast, informal caregivers reported just under two hours of television watching per day.

“These were pretty striking quality differences across these early childhood settings,” said Susanna Loeb, an author of the study and Barnett Family Professor of Education at Stanford University. “But what we really wanted to know was if these large differences in quality impacted children’s school readiness.”

They found that at age 5, children who attended formal childcare arrangements have substantially stronger reading and math skills relative to similar children who attended informal settings.

“Most interestingly,” added Loeb “these reading and math readiness gaps between children in homebased or preschool settings are fully explained by the differences in observed quality. Our findings suggest that these big quality disparities across sectors have meaningful implications for children’s development, and that improving the quality of family child care homes, or helping families find higher quality settings could have meaningful implications.”

These researchers say that given the widespread use of informal care, policy efforts to improve the quality in early childhood are likely to have important societal benefits. One option that they suggest to achieve that aim would be to more highly regulate home-based care.

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“Many families select informal, home-based settings because preschool slots don’t exist, are too expensive, or lack the flexibility that the family needs,” explained Bassok. “Policies that improve these issues by expanding access to flexible, affordable, formal arrangements may have long-term benefits.”

Providing parents easy to access information about the quality of their child care options may also be helpful.

“Most parents wish to enroll their child in safe, warm and engaging care settings, but they tend to know little about what effective classroom quality is,” said Loeb. “Providing parents with simple information about quality in early childhood settings may lead to changes in their early care choices and to improvements in child outcomes.”

Other authors on this paper include Maria Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor at Cornell, and Erica Greenberg, a research associate at the Urban Institute.

This story was written by Leslie Booren, managing director of EdPolicyWorks at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. Reporters interested in learning more about the study can contact her at 612-964-7204 (cell), 434-243-2021 (office) or booren@virginia.edu, or can contact Jonathan Rabinovitz, chief communications officer at Stanford Graduate School of Education, at jrabin@ stanford.edu or 650-724-9440.

https://ed.stanford.edu/news/

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Leonardo da Vinci (the ‘Renaissance Man’) is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals to have ever lived.

He is renowned primarily as a painter, most notably for the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but he is also celebrated for his technological ingenuity.

Da Vinci conceptualised flying machines, an armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine and the double hull.

Relatively few of his designs were constructed, or even feasible during his lifetime as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance.

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Da Vinci Machines is a touring exhibition comprising an impressive collection of complex machines precisely created from original da Vinci drawings in the 15th century which have been hand-built in Italy.

Highlights include the bicycle, spring powered car and hang glider as well as many other flying machines.

Between 30 July and 16 October teachers have the unique opportunity to share Leonardo’s genius with students by visiting this highly interactive exhibition. It uses hands-on activities and computer animations to illustrate the application of physical phenomena such as forces, energy, mass, friction and pressure.

Education@MOTAT offers several programmes which give students the chance to build on their understanding of the physical principles evident in Leonardo’s work through collaborative activity: Fantastic Flight –Students experience the forces of flight while entering a giant wind tunnel to test the aerofoil they have constructed, and explore how the parts of an aircraft are designed for their purposes. In Da Vinci Machines they can examine how Leonardo designed lightweight frameworks to exploit the principles of flight.

Simple Mechanisms - Students investigate the six simple mechanisms at work and the ways they make our lives easier. Working collaboratively in groups they will design and build a simple (or complex) mechanism. In Da Vinci Machines they can identify examples of the six mechanisms and see how Leonardo combined them to create complex machines.

Invent-a-Machine – like Leonardo, students can utilise the simple mechanisms to build a machine. They are challenged to think creatively as they design, construct and test their own machine using combinations of levers, pulleys, gears, inclined planes, wheels & axles and screws made from everyday materials. Students will work in groups to make a section of the machine which will be connected up to create a super machine curated by the whole class.

LifeHack! – ‘to hack is to mod or change something in an extraordinary way ‘. Innovative thinking doesn’t have to be complex, simple solutions can have global impact! In this programme students get to think innovatively to improve or repurpose an everyday object. This programme often leads to identification of projects suitable for entry into the NIWA Science and Technology Fair.

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Book an ‘Invent-a-Machine’ or ‘Simple Mechanisms’ education programme for your school group and receive a complimentary copy of the award-winning text ‘Primary Physics – The principles behind Leonardo’s science’. Terms and Conditions apply, please see the MOTAT website for details.

Contact MOTAT bookings by calling 09 815 5808 to discuss bringing your students on a fun and thought provoking experience designed to encourage them to become one of the future generation of Kiwi innovators.

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Calling all environmental champions Canon New Zealand announced that its 2016 Environmental Grants program will open 5th June, calling for all community groups, not for profit organisations and schools who are passionate about the environment to get involved and apply now.

Canon is offering three grants of $5,000 worth of Canon equipment, ranging from digital compact and DSLR cameras, to binoculars, printers and multifunction devices, to those who are undertaking environmental projects or initiatives.

Winners are selected based on the positive impact their project is having on the environment as well as how the Canon products can help them to drive greater success. The winners are sought across three categories: Regional, Education and Community.

Kim Conner, Managing Director of Canon New Zealand says that Canon is in search of great projects that are making a contribution, big or small, to our environment and the world we live in.

“Canon’s philosophy Kyosei translates to ‘living and working together for the common good’ and we’re passionate about celebrating the causes that are making a positive change in our community. Every year I am amazed by the high-caliber of entries and the ground breaking projects that are in the mix, if your project or cause is making a difference, then we encourage you to apply,” says Conner.

Last year’s winners, the Coromandel Film Collective, Kaipatiki Project and the Fiordland Conservation Trust were awarded for the positive impact their initiatives are having on environment, the uniqueness of their projects, and for demonstrating how important the use of Canon products is for further success.

The Kaipatiki Project, based in Auckland, received the Community Award for its vital program that educates and encourages the community to make an impact to both their local surroundings and backyards.

Janet Cole, Manager at The Kaipatiki Project says the team were thrilled to be chosen last year for the Canon Environmental Grant Award.

“The Kaipatiki Project aims at connecting people with the environment so they can take action to make a difference. The Grant has given us the equipment and resources to extend our reach, allowing us to visually share and communicate what we do and how people can get involved.

“Whether it’s showing community members how to remove invasive plant species from their properties, teaching them how to grow vegetables or caring for native plants, our dedicated team are committed to working with the community to spread the word and helping to restore our environment one step at a time,” says Cole.

This year the grants will be awarded under the following categories: Regional Award: An environmental project with significance to a rural or regional area within New Zealand Education Award: An environmental project being run by a kindergarten, primary or secondary school or tertiary organisation, or group within the organisation, within New Zealand Community Award: An environmental project being run by a community group or organisation within New Zealand Applications are open from Sunday 5th June until 31st August 2016 with the winners announced on the 12th September 2016.

To apply, learn more about the grants and see how previous winners have utilised their awards in our Canon Environmental Grants video, please visit: www.canon.co.nz/environment

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 27

The poor can’t learn?

Linda Tirado, the author of Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, not long ago interviewed in person on Sunday by Wallace Chapman, RNZ, really puts the boot in, giving a fresh perspective on the systemic nature of poverty.

She is clearly saying that policy makers haven’t a clue about what makes the poor tick.

She says the rich and powerful policy makers cannot make decisions on what to do about poverty on the basis of a few casual contacts with the poor.

She said our Prime Minister, John Key, can’t say he knows what it is to be poor just because he was brought up in a State house.

To truly know what it is like to walk in the shoes of the poor takes far more contact and close-up experience of their situation than that.

Policies that are intended to benefit the poor are always going to be missing the mark simply because there is likely to be zero, or near zero comprehension by policy makers of the reality of the situation the poor face.

Unfortunately, the same kind of policy disconnect seems to apply in regard to the poor in education in New Zealand. Hence the failing tail consisting of mainly poor students that’s been evident now for thirty years. Policy, even that formulated by those with knowledge and experience of dealing with poor children can’t help but being developed from a “have” rather than from a “have not” perspective. The fact that making money is such a prime driver of the “haves” blurs the fact that though the poor are also just as obsessed with money, for them money is about food on the table, it is not about the gaining of affluence and influence.

The culture of the “haves” can’t help but seep into the policy making process and into all aspects of running a school. Schools thus become organized around the values of the “haves”, the assumption being made is that the same values are adhered to by all. Those that don’t adhere to the same values end up in the “other” category, and so become sidelined.

Sometimes this even means the values of the poor are considered to be irrelevant. Certainly it almost always means that only one view prevails; not that the “haves” can necessarily be blamed for this, because what they are responding to are unconscious influences transmitted by culture.

Where there is another overlay of culture involved, say the cultures of ethnicity, things become a whole lot more complicated. If the prevailing ethos is one where all are considered equal before the economic god the “haves” worship, catering for the diversity within schools by the use of, say, the same evaluation systems for all, becomes quite problematic. The reason? That evaluation system will carry the values of the affluent. In particular, the same applies with pedagogies in that preferred ways of learning of minority groups are typically not used. That happens largely because teachers of the majority culture likely don’t know about them and could well feel uncomfortable about using them even if they did.

Even though a desire to get a good education gets drilled into most children across all sections of society,

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Laurie Loper Psychologist that doesn’t mean that the poor see the accessing of education in the same way as the affluent see it. The access hurdles students face vary across income levels. What the relatively affluent see as easily enough obtained add-ons to what the main curriculum offers, those students from homes with little or no disposable income, see them as just another struggle element and another differentiating factor they have to cope with as best they can.

Being poor from scratch, yet expecting the poor to ascend the societal pecking order through education, will likely occasion them stresses, strains and choice situations outside the experiential territory of policy makers. As a 16 year old, I well remember a conversation I had with a lad who was leaving school at the earliest age possible to work on a major construction site adjacent to the wind-swept, subalpine location where each of our families lived in construction camp accommodation. Obviously, school had never meet his need to be a successful learner so my expounding on the long term value of education fell on deaf ears, and he openly embraced the life of unskilled labouring, and all of its attendant uncertainties, convinced he had made the right choice.

Looking back, becoming a learner who persisted seemed to be the thing that made the difference for me. The chances that came my way included some social capital I inherited in that I had a father who of necessity during the Depression, started off labouring in construction work but stayed in it sufficiently long to find he had a real talent for it. This I was to witness often, working with him during vacation work he secured for me. But because he left school at the end of Standard 4 (Year 6), civil engineering was a career that he never really had the opportunity to pursue, so he had to make do with second best, eventually joining the Public Service and becoming a construction overseer. He did displace his ambitions on to me, the eldest son, to a slight degree in that he ensured I went to a secondary boarding school so I would have options and I would be free from the

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disruption of the continual moving that is an inevitable life circumstance of construction workers and their families.

Circumstances determined I even got to teach some of those construction camp kids in my Probationary Assistant year (a registration requirement for teachers back then). Though their fathers earned big wages, paydays too often triggered three-day binge drinking episodes. In many respects, the children in my class were as tough and resilient as any poor children anywhere. In retrospect, I realised I saddled them all with the same misperceptions about who could or couldn’t learn and be successful in life as I suspect did many other teachers of that era. There was one student, the son of the resident engineer, who stood out. He was a knowledgeable lad. He was the benchmark and in my mind I categorised every other student as being less capable than he as learners. By doing that I was unaware that in effect I had written off all the others, for I had no way of knowing that learning science was subsequently going to reveal that all students bring to class daily the same capacity to learn as did my star pupil. Had I known this I would have done things whole lot differently, you could count on it.

Such is the weight of evidence that now proves the poor do bring to school the same capacity to learn and can learn as well as any other student, it ought be a given that the whole teaching force know and accept the fact and incorporate it into their practice. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, though, if only a small minority of teachers currently believe that even now.

Certainly those who are implementing the Bobbie Maths programme find that’s something every teacher has had to come to grips with. The programme mentioned goes to some lengths to create a dissonance in teachers, demonstrating by the use of an effective pedagogy that in fact all students are able to learn more or less as well as each other.

Interventions therefore need to be designed in the knowledge that pedagogy, not poverty, is the standout

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reason why we appear to be permanently saddled with a failing tail of students, policy makers take note.

Getting teachers to accept this isn’t easy for what’s involved in the training to use Bobbie Maths is akin to each teacher pitting themselves against themselves in a situation that’s not unlike trying to kick an addiction. Those doing the training are literally being asked to give up the habits, beliefs and practices acquired over a lifetime. Through the supportive dissonance training undertaken by the teachers, each has the opportunity to bring about changes in their own student’s achievement, sufficient to convince them of what they are doing is making the significant difference they’re witnessing.

Currently, this reinvention of teaching, as this process is being styled, is thought to take around three years.

This aspect of the approach is the costliest as it requires expert mentoring over that period. But taking into account the magnitude of the difference research shows it is making, not to mentor as assiduously as is being done would be a no brainer.

From a policy perspective what ought to be considered is a realignment of thinking about curriculum development such that learning-to-learn becomes the priority. Many schools would say that is what they are now doing, but frankly, as the experience in using Bobbie Maths shows, I don’t think they know what they’re talking about or understand what’s involved in making it happen.

Curriculums are becoming so crowded and knowledge growth is so rapid that knowing how to learn becomes the only way to go. To assume that students already pick up enough learning-to-learn skills from classrooms assumes too much. There would be a substantial bonus in adopting an approach whereby all learning-to-learn skills relevant to particular topics/subjects were made explicit and formally taught and used sufficiently often to make them second nature. That bonus would be the injection into teaching of all the research about learning that so far has been prevented from being incorporated into teaching practice.

But the cherry on the top of this particular cake would be finding a way, like the one I’ve done pioneering work on, to incorporate this learning-to-learn skill learning into every parent’s child rearing practices.

That way the teaching load would be shared, parents would truly become their child’s first teacher (and effective at it), all children would arrive at school day

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one well prepared to learn, and parents and teachers would truly become partners in the child’s education. As well, child abuse could well become a thing of the past.

People can dream up all the causes they care to for why education is apparently underserving some students hence there’s this failing tail has been with us these past thirty years. But it’s not just the poor that we need to be looking out for here; where efficacy is the major issue every student is being underserved to some degree or other.

For it‘s inefficacy, and not poverty that’s the chief villain of the piece here. And it is efficacy that is the solution. All this talk of the achievement-threatening link between poverty, deprivation, and failure, and what it and all this talk of special this and special that ends up doing is ’otherising’ the very children in question, making them feel different and less worthy in themselves and as learners. All they want to do is fit in, be successful as learners within their own ethnicity and not to become singled out as special cases.

Time to ensure pedagogy matches what learningscience began telling us around thirty years ago, for that’s at least how long we have been “behind the eight ball” on this issue. Time to recognise that almost all students can learn very well, even the poor.

For anyone seeking further information on Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities, otherwise known as Bobbie Maths, less commonly Pasifika Maths – the 15 video feature with the analysis of ‘evidence in action’ and supporting references provide great background. http://www.educationcounts. govt.nz/topics/BES/developingmathematical-inquiry/introduction

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ALERTS TO THREATS IN 2016 EUROPE From JOHN CLEESE The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”.

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”. The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.

Terrorists have been re-categorised from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance”. The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards”. They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender”.

The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”. Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides”.

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The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”. They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose”.

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out ofBrussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, Mate”. Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is cancelled”. So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.

In New Zealand the Kiwis have responded by practicing their Haka.

Regards, John Cleese British writer, actor and tall person And as a final thought - Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 31

Harambe’s Legacy

Elaine Le Sueur

Blame the zoo.

Harambe is a kiswahili word meaning working together or sharing.

The recent tragedy at Cincinnati zoo has prompted an outpouring of social media response that saddens me.

The human tendency to point the finger of blame, and indulge in witch hunting made me squirm.

Those who do not respond to situations in a judgmental way, and are willing to make decisions based on a limited range of facts while not having the luxury of a wait and see approach are in a minority.

Blame the parents.

Tranquillize the gorilla.

Review the gorilla’s actions over and over again through the camera lens.

It is a brave person indeed who is able to quickly assess the options in a way that challenges mob justice. The decision to end the life of a critically endangered animal in order to save one of our own species is one that most of us hope that we never would have to make. It is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Anthropomorphism of animal behaviour is an instinctive human reaction but it is dangerous.

Arguments that the silverback gorilla, Harambe, was acting in a protective way when he held the child’s hand prompt the question if he was being protective, then what was he protecting the child from? All of the female gorillas had already responded to their keepers’ safety procedures and left the scene. In the wild, infanticide by male gorillas is not uncommon behaviour. Harambe’s intent is unknown to us. He is a different species.

Is it time to move the focus on to the panoramic view and think about the broader issue of why are zoos necessary? And if they are, then what needs to be done to encourage compassion, tolerance and co-operation to result in a world where we all work together for mutual benefit?

Our gifted students deserve to be given time to discuss and reflect on issues such as this because the future of many species depends on it. AND as

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Stephanie Tolan so eloquently put it … ‘It’s a tough time to raise, teach or be a highly gifted child...

Schools are to extraordinarily intelligent children what zoos are to endangered species (cheetahs in her analogy) ... Every organism has an internal drive to fulfil its biological design. The same is true for unusually bright children. From time to time the bars need be removed, the enclosures broadened. Zoo Chow, easy and cheap as it is, must give way, at least some of the time, to lively, challenging mental prey.

– Stephanie Tolan, Is It A Cheetah?’

Is it time to embrace the way that technology is able to change the face of traditional schooling for our gifted students and admit that we are being given a wonderful opportunity for them to interact with others of high ability so that their decisions are better informed? It is certainly possible today. Perhaps it is time for schools to foster ways in which we can create positive relationships between communities to expand on ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ and to realise that

for our highly able children the links are not necessarily right on the doorstep.

On the side of caution however, the speed at which we are able to communicate on a global basis contributes to the ways that people think about things in both positive and negative ways. Everyone seems to carry a camera. A snapshot in time is still just that.

A brief and limited view of a particular time and place.

Are we missing other important cues these days by our current love affair with the camera lens?

Is our view of the world being limited by our ability to filter and edit out what we don’t want to think about?

Harambe’s death has provoked far more questions than answers. Maybe that is the legacy that we are left with. What do you think?

http://made2share.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/ harambes-legacy.html

INVITATION We are in the process of putting together a non-fiction biographical book to show our smart school age students that they can learn from each other as well as famous people in the community. If you are (or you know of/can recommend) a student attempting to make a positive difference to the lives of others through a project and would like to be involved, then we would love to hear from you. Someone else can help to write the story down but it needs to be a true story with how the student dealt with any issues that arose as they went along. If the story is included in the book then he/she will get a free copy when it is published. Any profits made from sales of the book once it is published will be given to the Kids First Children’s hospital.

All stories should be completed as soon as possible to be considered for publication.

Contact Elaine for help if required. Justelaine@xtra.co.nz (Stories and supporting material such as photos, newspaper articles etc will not be returned so please send copies).

Students, please include this on the bottom of your story and ask your parent/ guardian to sign permission to include your story if it is selected: I/We certify that this is work is by ............................................................................................................................................................. (name of student) I/We give approval for the above story to be published, should it be selected for inclusion.

We understand that there is no payment other than a free copy of the publication if this story is included.

Signed ...........................................................................................................................

Date .........................................................................................

Signed ...........................................................................................................................

E-mail your story a.s.a.p. (with supporting material attachments if desired) to Elaine Le Sueur, Gifted Education Consultant at justelaine@xtra.co.nz

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 33

Children with learning difficulties im behavioural optometry service Southern Lakes and Central Otago children with learning difficulties and behavioural issues are benefitting thanks to the area’s only qualified behavioural optometrist, Danielle Ross.

Ross, principal optometrist at Wanaka’s Eyes on Ardmore, has recently become a registered behavioural optometrist through industry body Australasian College of Behavioural Optometrists.

She is the only qualified behavioural optometrist in the Central Otago and Southern Lakes region, also servicing the lower South Island.

Since gaining registration in March 2015, she has seen many children in Wanaka, Queenstown and Central Otago with learning and behavioural difficulties improve with vision therapy treatment.

And with the second term of the 2016 school year underway, enquiries from across the district have been increasing.

The demand has been such that Ross has taken on a vision therapist, qualified secondary school teacher and experienced special needs worker Rachel Rankin.

Vision therapy helps re-wire and re-teach visual pathways and visual patterns over a 12-16-week course of treatment. Ross and Rankin use a variety of techniques to engage a child and encourage visualisation of words that they are looking at. They are taught the foundational skills required to read – not how to read – plus other techniques to manage and adapt to challenges with learning.

“A regular optometrist is focused on a child’s eyesight – how clearly they can see – while a behavioural optometrist takes it one step further and asks, ‘how do you make sense of what you’re seeing?’” Ross explains.

“Often having a child’s eyes tested is a last resort; people don’t always think about the eyes. This is because some children with learning difficulties can see clearly – they just can’t make sense of what they’re seeing. Once a child has a cognitive shortfall, they often exhibit behavioural difficulties as well.

Because learning is 90% visual, having a child’s eyes tested by a behavioural optometrist should be the first port of call when learning difficulties are suspected.”

Rankin says: “We are seeing massive improvements.

The results are proven. We are seeing children’s reading ages jump quite considerably and we find their attention has improved a lot.”

The addition of behavioural optometry services to Wanaka and further afield has been welcomed by leading educational consultant Jenny Tebbutt, who specialises in dealing with at-risk groups of children in education.

“It is estimated that as many as 70% of children with learning difficulties have some kind of visual problem.

This is often a visual processing problem. The child can have perfect vision but the brain has difficulty processing what the eye sees. Normal optometrists do not assess for this and students must see a behavioural optometrist. School eye tests do not assess for this either,” Tebbutt says.

It is estimated that 22% of children are in at-risk learning groups, Tebbutt adds.

“Children with dyslexia, dyspraxia, children on the spectrum, those with ADHD and children with auditory and visual processing disorders all have underpinning cognitive weaknesses that can include visual problems.

“It is very common for significant improvements to be reported with behavioural optometry. When visual

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mprove with new Wanaka-based

problems are not identified, children continue to underachieve.”

Ross and Rankin are both Irlen-certified examiners and can incorporate colour therapy into vision therapy.

Ross adds: “It’s great to be able to offer a comprehensive behavioural optometry and vision therapy service to parents and children, and seeing the results and improvement in learning and behaviour is so rewarding.”

Ross has also just launched her new website, danielleross.co.nz, which has information about behavioural vision and vision therapy as well as resources for parents, teachers and other professionals. The website will also include information on Ross’s other areas of expertise – she is a contact lens specialist (orthokeratologist), a qualified paediatric optometrist and an eye disease specialist.

About Eyes on Ardmore Eyes on Ardmore is a nationally-respected optometry practice based in Wanaka. Owned by principal optometrist Danielle Ross, Eyes on Ardmore specialises in leading clinical eyecare and selling unique, high quality, fashion-forward eyewear. Eyes on Ardmore is focused on providing the highest possible standard of care to ensure people’s eyes maintain optimal health, and to identify and treat avoidable blindness. It is the first practice in Wanaka to introduce a state-of-the-art Ocular Cohernece Tomography (OCT) machine – enabling patients to receive advanced preventative examinations and allowing the opportunity for specialist outpatient services to be accessed in the resort.

Eyes on Ardmore principal optometrist Danielle Ross (right) and vision therapist Rachel Rankin

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 35

Nature Black Pen Illustrations Using only black pen, Alfred Basha illustrates the nature of animal world and human being, altered into a surrealistic space. He lets his imaginations dances wildly in the wild of a nature, and bring these beautiful images right into our eyes.

He lets his imaginations dances wildly in the wild of a nature, and bring these beautiful images right into our eyes.

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by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office

One lap top per child

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 43

Just Keep Swimming My 6-year-old is arguing because he is right and I am wrong.

My 4-year-old is whining because today is not her birthday.

My 2-year-old is screaming because she no longer fits inside my uterus.

I’ve used the scary mom voice more times in the last 30 minutes than I have in the last 30 days.

You know the voice; it’s the one we save for in-home use ONLY and barely recognize even as it’s spewing from our own lips.

The dogs are so sick of the noise they’ve hidden upstairs, not even to emerge for their daily bark at the mail truck.

It’s barely 7am, and the shit is officially hitting the fan.

I try to be like Nemo’s pal, Dory, and tell myself to just keep swimming, but…

Today, I am drowning in motherhood.

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The breakfast I make isn’t served quickly enough.

The 4-year-old informs me she only eats toast on Tuesdays.

I don’t realize the milk has expired until cups are filled to the brims.

Just keep swimming…

Wash the dishes–fold the laundry– as I accomplish daily, mundane tasks, I wonder if I have the energy to do them for even one more second. As I stuff socks into drawers, I think about running away! Oooh, where could I go?!

Tahiti?!

A restaurant with linen napkins?!

The bathroom, all by myself?!

A voice yelling from the kitchen interrupts my daydream: my son, calling from where he stands in front of the open refrigerator, wearing nothing but his underwear, is yet again ignoring my constant reminders to not yell from room to room. So I do what any self-respecting, mature parent would do: I ignore him.

Just keep swimming!!!!!

I’m not a terrible mother; in fact, on most days, I’m pretty okay at this parenting thing. But today, I suck. The walls of our house are closing in on me. My chest feels tight. I am a slow boil, dangerously close to overflowing, and despite my best efforts, I cannot maintain a steady simmer. After explicitly asking for privacy in the bathroom to handle my lady business, I am, yet again, blatantly ignored.

Now someone else is gonna have to explain menstruation to a 4-year-old because I am all tapped out today, folks! I want everyone to shut their face holes and stop touching me.

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JUST. KEEP. SWIMMING. My husband is a kind man with a generous heart, which means I’ve got it gooood, yet today, I want to smother him with the accent pillows on our couch because he gets to leave the house to go to work and wear pants that zipper and enjoy adult conversation while, I get to schedule dentist appointments in between soccer and gymnastics AND remember tomorrow is crazy hair day at school AND try not to forget a kid somewhere AND navigate one of those half amusement park ride, half shopping cart on steroids through the narrow aisles of the grocery store AND worry.

Oh, the worry!

Are the kids getting enough exercise?

How long have they been on those iPads? Do they mind their manners when I’m not around? Does it have to be grass-fed, certified organic beef?

Seriously, how long they been on those iPads?! Are we doing enough math?

Okay kids, listen up! if Mummy has cried 3 times today and yelled 6 times, in how many minutes will she call Grandma for help?

My husband just doesn’t get it; therefore, he is on their side. I am alone, an island of insanity hoping for everything surrounding me to be still and quiet and agreeable. The mental grind of parenting is exhausting.

Just…keep…swimming…

Part of me feels like a disgrace for even thinking these things; it’s not just my husband that’s good—my life is good! Yet another part of me is like this is honest, and it’s OK to admit that I miss talking on the phone without interruption from plastic Snow White high heels tap-freakingdancing on hardwood floors three inches from my face.

JUST! KEEP! SWIMMING! Nothing in particular and everything all at once has done me in today. And when he catches a glimpse of my crazy eyes and unwashed hair, my patient husband corrals the kids to bed, giving me a moment of peace. Disconnected from the chaos, my shoulders melt back into their resting position, and I can finally turn off my brain. I exhale for the first time in 14 hours.

Ya know, all those other fish think there’s something wrong with Dory because she can’t remember what she did yesterday, but I think she’s on to something. And after sneaking into my kids’ darkened bedrooms and kissing their sweet faces one more time, I know tomorrow will be better. The forgetting is why we’re able to just keep swimming.

Hey there, I’m Steph! English teacher by trade, smack-talker by nature, and mother of three who lives by the mantra: Life is too short, laugh! I hope you’ll stick around and check out my stuff. And by stuff I mean my writing.

I edited the original version of this essay so it would mesh better with our 2016 Listen to Your Mother Pittsburgh show. If you’d like to watch my live reading of it, clickHERE!

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 45

How Lewis Carroll’s Rules of Letter-W and Digital Communication Kinder

“If your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed, or make your reply distinctly

These values are what mathematician Charles Dodgson (January 27, 1832–January 14, 1898), better known as Alice in Wonderland creator Lewis Carroll, set out to celebrate in his short 1890 pamphlet Eight or Nine Wise Words about LetterWriting (public library; free download). Carroll is less concerned with the epistolary etiquette of letter-writing — the subject of another how-to book from that era — than he is with the higher-order ethics of correspondence as a form of civility. Although some of the nine rules are decidedly dated — such as his “rules for making, and keeping, a Letter-Register” of “Letters Received and Sent” — most offer wisdom of surprisingly civilizing value when applied to email and other contemporary textual communication.

Even the seemingly dated — those ideas that appear, on the surface, to apply strictly and solely to oldfashion letter-writing — contain ample wisdom to be gleaned for any modern medium. Take, for instance, Carroll’s opening exhortation:

I have a friend who writes me wonderful letters. He sends them via email, but they are very much letters — the kind of slow, contemplative correspondence that Virginia Woolf termed “the humane art.”

For what more humane an act is there than correspondence itself — the art of mutual response — especially amid a culture of knee-jerk reactions that is the hallmark of most communication today?

If the Letter is to be in answer to another, begin by getting out that other letter and reading it through, in order to refresh your memory, as to what it is you have to answer… A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly.

Of all the emails you regret firing off in a reactive fury, how many could have been abated by a

Letters, by their very nature, make us pause to reflect on what the other person is saying and on what we’d like to say to them in response.

Only when we step out of the reactive ego, out of the anxious immediacy that text-messaging and email have instilled in us, and contemplate what is being communicated — only then do we stand a chance of being civil to one another, and maybe even kind.

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Self-portrait by Lewis Carroll from ‘The Alice in Wonderland Cookbook.

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Writing Can Make Email More Civil

BY MARIA POPOVA

y less severe.”

deliberate pause for rereading your correspondent’s points and contemplating your own reply a little less hastily? Carroll, in fact, addresses this directly in his fourth rule: When you have written a letter that you feel may possibly irritate your friend, however necessary you may have felt it to so express yourself, put it aside till the next day. Then read it over again, and fancy it addressed to yourself. This will often lead to your writing it all over again, taking out a lot of the vinegar and pepper, and putting in honey instead, and thus making a much more palatable dish of it!

His fifth rule furthers this agenda of abating reactivity by suggesting a sort of one-upmanship of civility in contentious exchanges: If your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed, or make your reply distinctly less severe: and if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards “making up” the little difference that has arisen between you, let your reply be distinctly more friendly.

If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than threeeighths of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to gofive-eighths of the way — why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels!

He later recommends a similar approach to the sentiment of the signature: If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully,” or “yours truly,” or “yours most truly,” &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach “yours affectionately”), refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his; in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!

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Page from ‘How to Write Letters,’ 1876.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 47

The sixth dictum — which philosopher Daniel Dennett would come to echo more than a century later in his four rules for arguing intelligently — builds on the fifth.

Lewis writes: Don’t try to have the last word!

How many a controversy would be nipped in the bud, if each was anxious to let the other have the last word! Never mind how telling a rejoinder you leave unuttered: never mind your friend’s supposing that you are silent from lack of anything to say: let the thing drop, as soon as it is possible without discourtesy: remember “speech is silvern, but silence is golden”!

Carroll makes a related case against our stubborn selfrighteousness — to which he brings a delightful touch of his mathematician’s wit — in the third rule: Don’t repeat yourself. When once you have said your say, fully and clearly, on a certain point, and have failed to convince your friend,drop that subject: to repeat your arguments, all over again, will simply lead to his doing the same; and so you will go on, like a Circulating Decimal. Did you ever know a Circulating Decimal come to an end?

The world’s first use of emoticons in print, 1881, from ‘100 Diagrams That Changed the World.’

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His seventh rule is of particular interest in the context of today’s ambivalence about using emoticons in email. Even those unfazed by self-consciousness about the silliness of emoticons, to say nothing of emoji, remain exasperated by the general difficulty in conveying subtle emotional nuances in written communication —especially sarcasm and snark, the latter being Carroll’s own invention. Writing nine years after the first usage of an emoticon in print, Carroll counsels: If it should ever occur to you to write, jestingly, in dispraise of your friend, be sure you exaggerate enough to make the jesting obvious: a word spoken in jest, but taken as earnest, may lead to very serious consequences. I have known it to lead to the breaking-off of a friendship.

The remaining rules are, indeed, rather dated in the context of digital communication, but even among them there is the occasional pearl of timeless lucidity. In the ninth, for instance — which deals with the issue of having more to say in a letter than the paper on hand has room to accommodate — Carroll offers this eternally pragmatic aside: A Postscript is a very useful invention: but it is not meant… to contain the real gist of the letter: it serves rather to throw into the shade any little matter we do not wish to make a fuss about.

Ever the tactful diplomat, Carroll offers a counterpoint to such misuses of the postscript by pointing out one particularly appropriate use — the delicate assuaging of a friend’s anxieties by demoting them to the very bottom of the letter and thus the lowest order of concern. He offers as an example a friend who has promised to do something for you and is now writing, mortified, to apologize for having forgotten to do it; the conscientious correspondent, Carroll points out, would avoid making the oversight the main subject of his or her reply — for this “would be cruel, and needlessly crushing” — and instead writes a letter about entirely different matters, graciously adding: “P.S. Don’t distress yourself any more about having omitted that little matter…”

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The Wonderland Postage Stamp Case, exterior And now for a curious sidebar story: Although Carroll was a genuine lover of the letter form, the booklet was in part an exercise in “branded content”: The previous year, Carroll had patented a quirky little invention he called The Wonderland Postage Stamp Case — an offbeat solution to the delightfully quaint problem of having your written communication constantly stymied by running out of stamps — for which the pamphlet was essentially promotional material. Carroll had done nothing more than create a playful and somewhat better-designed alternative to the regular stamp case, but such subtleties are often the differentiation point of genius. The book even included a mock-testimonial: Since I have possessed a “Wonderland Stamp Case”, Life has been bright and peaceful, and I have used no other. I believe the Queen’s laundress uses no other.

The case contained twelve separate pockets of stamps, each designated for a different stamp-value.

Carroll took especial pride in what he called the two “Pictorial Surprises” gracing the cover: The outer slipcase depicts Alice holding the Duchess’s crying baby — not an illustration that appears anywhere in his Alice books — but inside it is the actual stamp case, on which the baby transmogrifies into a pig. In the book, Carroll winks at this playful trick: If that doesn’t surprise you, why, I suppose you wouldn’t be surprised if your own Mother-in-law suddenly turned into a Gyroscope!

Complement Eight or Nine Wise Words about LetterWriting with Carroll’s four rules for digesting information, his tips on dining etiquette, his entertaining letter of apology for standing a friend up, and the best illustrations from 150 years of Alice in Wonderland, then revisit Virginia Woolf on what killed letter-writing and why we ought to keep it alive.

The Wonderland Postage Stamp Case, interior (Images courtesy of The British Postal Museum & Archive) 50 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

Employment concerns emphasize continued value of international study QS release global report on international student motivations QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts, have today released the global edition of their “What Matters to International Students?” report series, providing first-hand insight into the mentalities and concerns of the five million international students leaving their country to study abroad. The global overview finds that: •

Employability remains the preponderant concern for the world’s international students, and is, uniformly, the key incentive for international study;

•

However, though all applicants seek to enhance their employability through international study, students from different regions believe that international study will do so in different ways, having different employability outcomes in mind;

•

The precise ways in which international students believe that studying abroad will improve their employability are a result of both their own employment goals, their backgrounds and the specific employment market with which they are familiar;

For example, when asked to cite the two main benefits of studying at an internationally-recognised university, students from developed nations are more likely to cite pull factors enticing them abroad than push factors deterring them from remaining in their home county. These pull factors include: •

•

The possibility of creating an international network of connections– 56% of US students cite this as one of the two main benefits of international study, more than for any other demographic surveyed by QS; Enhanced employment prospects – most likely to be cited by European students, with almost 60% of them citing this as one of the two main benefits of international study;

Conversely, students from developing nations are more likely to cite push factors deterring them from remaining in their country of origin for further study.

These push factors broadly fall under the desire for the quality of education and learning experience offered abroad. QS’s research finds that this is perceived as the primary benefit of studying at an internationally-recognised institution by Indian, Chinese, Latin American, and South-East Asian students. Factors contributing to ‘quality education’ are described as follows: •

Improved teaching quality, with a focus on practical application rather than theoretical knowledge – an especial concern for Indian students;

•

A greater possibility of specialisation, or the ability to take courses not offered in the applicant’s home country – a particular incentive for Latin American applicants;

•

A higher quality and breadth of resource than exists in the applicant’s home country;

•

The prestige conferred by a degree from a highly-ranked institution – of particular concern for Chinese students, given the difficulty of standing out in their heavily-crowded employment market.

The desire to enhance employability also dictates student attitudes towards university rankings. QS’s research also surveys said attitudes, and finds: •

Subject-specific rankings are uniformly preferred to overall rankings, with 66% or more students preferring to consult subject rankings in every surveyed region except South-East Asia (59%).

•

This is due to the belief that subject-specific rankings are a better filtering tool, allowing them to focus on their chosen subject, and, consequently, succeed in their chosen career;

•

Global rankings are uniformly preferred to regional or national ones. This can be partly attributed to the cohort being surveyed, but is also attributable to students increasingly recognising that international study is a means of gaining an employability edge – whether returning home after study or seeking fortunes abroad.

Project Leaders Laura Bridgestock and Dasha Karzunina said: ‘Although students from different parts of the world are often pursuing similar goals through international study, their approach to their education and how they expect to be approached by universities is totally different. This is why we believe this research could be exceptionally insightful for universities that are either marketing to particular regions or are looking to internationalise their institution more broadly.’

The report is the largest and most comprehensive of the series. It is based on the findings from 60 focus groups conducted in 11 countries by QS’s in-house researchers Dasha Karzunina and Laura Bridgestock.

This qualitative data is supplemented by 1,800 responses to a bespoke survey conducted for the purposes of the report series, and 35,000 responses sourced over three years from QS’s World Grad School Tour Applicant Survey. The findings from the latter were recently featured by ICEF Monitor.

Accessed London, 19th July 2016: Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 51

‘Hangarau - Technology in Aotea MOTAT ‘s education programme ‘Hangarau - Technology in Aotearoa’ looks at the materials used in everyday life pre- and post-European contact with Māori society.

It delves into the climate and landscape of Aotearoa and examines how it was vastly different from the homeland of the first Polynesian settlers.

This forced them to learn all they could about their new environment so they could begin to thrive, using the flora and fauna of Aotearoa to weave the foundation threads of Māori society.

Aotearoa has the shortest human history of any country in the world. The precise date of settlement is still debatable; our current understanding is that the first arrivals came from East Polynesia in the 13th century.

The original Polynesian explorers encountered New Zealand on deliberate journeys of discovery, navigating by the winds, stars and ocean currents. Sometime later the first small groups of settlers arrived from Polynesia to make Aotearoa home.

Note: pictures indicative only 52 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

It was not until 1642 that the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman made the first confirmed European discovery of New Zealand. It would be 127 years after this date that James Cook arrived on the shores of Aotearoa, mapping the land and sending reports back to England about the environment and its indigenous population.

Students who attend ‘Hangarau – Technology in Aotearoa’ will look at how crops were grown and food prepared, stored and then cooked. They will also use traditional Māori drills and discover the techniques used for trapping birds and rats as well as explore traditional activities and pastimes that demonstrate the origins of technology in Aotearoa. This programme has a social science and technology focus and is suitable for year 4-8 students.

To find out more or to book, contact bookings@ motat.org.nz

aroa’

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10 Tips And Tricks To Learn Any

Advice for learning languages from a guy who speak Matthew Youlden speaks nine languages fluently and understands more than a dozen more.

We work in the same office in Berlin so I constantly hear him using his skills, switching from language to language like a chameleon changing colors. In fact, for the longest time I didn’t even know he was British.

When I told Matthew how I’ve been struggling to merely pick up a second language, he had the following advice for me. If you believe that you can never become bilingual, take note!

1. KNOW WHY YOU’RE DOING IT This might sound obvious, but if you don’t have a good reason to learn a language, you are less likely to stay motivated over the long-run. Wanting to impress English-speakers with your French is not a very good reason; wanting to get to know a French person in his or her own language is another matter entirely. No matter your reason, once you’ve decided on a language, it’s crucial to commit: “OK, I want to learn this and I’m therefore going to do as much as I can in this language, with this language and for this language.”

2. FIND A PARTNER Matthew learned several languages together with his twin brother Michael (they tackled their first foreign language, Greek, when they were only eight years old!). Matthew and Michael, or the Super Polyglot Bros. as I’d like to now refer to them, gained their superpowers from good-ol’, healthy sibling rivalry: “We were very motivated, and we still are. We push each other to really go for it. So if he realizes that I’m doing more than he is he’ll get a bit jealous and then try and outdo me (maybe because he’s my twin) – and the other way round.”

Even if you can’t get a sibling to join you on your language adventure, having any kind of partner will push both of you to always try just a little bit harder and stay with it: “I think it’s a really great way of actually going about it.

You have someone with whom you can speak, and that’s the idea behind learning a language.”

3. TALK TO YOURSELF When you have no one else to speak to, there’s 54 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

nothing wrong with talking to yourself: “It might sound really weird, but actually speaking to yourself in a language is a great way to practice if you’re not able to use it all the time.”

This can keep new words and phrases fresh in your mind and build up your confidence for the next time you speak with someone.

4. KEEP IT RELEVANT If you make conversation a goal from the beginning, you are less likely to get lost in textbooks. Talking to people will keep the learning process relevant to you: “You’re learning a language to be able to use it.

You’re not going to speak it to yourself. The creative side is really being able to put the language that you’re learning into a more useful, general, everyday setting – be that through writing songs, generally wanting to speak to people, or using it when you go abroad. You don’t necessarily have to go abroad; you can go to the Greek restaurant down the road and order in Greek.”

5. HAVE FUN WITH IT Using your new language in any way is a creative act.

The Super Polyglot Bros. practiced their Greek by writing and recording songs. Think of some fun ways to practice your new language: make a radio play with a friend, draw a comic strip, write a poem, or simply talk to whomever you can. If you can’t find a way to have fun with the new language, chances are you aren’t following step four.

6. ACT LIKE A CHILD This is not to say you should throw a tantrum or get food in your hair when you go out to a restaurant, but try learning the way kids do. The idea that children are inherently better learners than adults is proving to be a myth. New research cannot find a direct link between age and the ability to learn. The key to learning as quickly as a child may be to simply take on certain childlike attitudes: for instance, lack of self-consciousness, a desire to play in the language and willingness to make mistakes.

We learn by making mistakes. As kids, we are expected to make mistakes, but as adults mistakes become taboo. Think how an adult is more likely to say, “I can’t”, rather than, “I haven’t learned that yet” (I can’t swim, I can’t drive, I can’t speak Spanish). To be seen failing (or merely struggling) is a social taboo that doesn’t burden children. When it comes to learning a language, admitting that you don’t know everything (and being okay with that) is the key to growth and freedom. Let go of your grown-up inhibitions!

y Language

ks nine.

7. LEAVE YOUR COMFORT ZONE Willingness to make mistakes means being ready to put yourself in potentially embarrassing situations.

This can be scary, but it’s the only way to develop and improve. No matter how much you learn, you won’t ever speak a language without putting yourself out there: talk to strangers in the language, ask for directions, order food, try to tell a joke. The more often you do this, the bigger your comfort zone becomes and the more at ease you can be in new situations: “At the beginning you’re going to encounter difficulties: maybe the pronunciation, maybe the grammar, the syntax, or you don’t really get the sayings. But I think the most important thing is to always develop this feel. Every native speaker has a feel for his or her own language, and that’s basically what makes a native-speaker – whether you can make the language your own.”

8. LISTEN You must learn to listen before you can speak. Every language sounds strange the first time you hear it, but the more you expose yourself to it the more familiar it becomes, and the easier it is to speak it properly: “We’re able to pronounce anything, it’s just we’re not used to doing it. For example the rolled r doesn’t exist in my form of English. When I was learning Spanish there were words with the hard r in them like perro and reunión. For me, the best way to go about mastering that is actually to hear it constantly, to listen to it and to kind of visualize or imagine how that is supposed to be pronounced, because for every sound there is a specific part of the mouth or throat that we use in order to achieve that sound.”

9. WATCH PEOPLE TALK

BY JOHN-ERIK JORDAN recommends the 360° maximalist approach: no matter which learning tools you use, it’s crucial to practice your new language every single day: “I tend to want to absorb as much as possible right from the start. So if I learn something I really, really go for it and try to use it throughout the day. As the week progresses I try to think in it, try to write in it, try to speak to myself even in that language. For me it’s about actually putting what you’re learning into practice – be that writing an email, speaking to yourself, listening to music, listening to the radio.

Surrounding yourself, submerging yourself in the new language culture is extremely important.”

Remember, the best possible outcome of speaking a language is for people to speak back to you. Being able to have a simple conversation is a huge reward in itself. Reaching milestones like that early on will make it easier to stay motivated and keep practicing.

And don’t worry, you won’t annoy people by speaking their language poorly. If you preface any interaction with, “I’m learning and I’d like to practice…” most people will be patient, encouraging and happy to oblige. Even though there are approximately a billion non-native English-speakers around the world, most of them would rather speak their own language if given a choice. Taking the initiative to step into someone else’s language world can also put them at ease and promote good feelings all around: “Sure, you can travel abroad speaking your own language, but you’ll get so much more out of it being able to actually feel at ease in the place you are – being able to communicate, to understand, to interact in every situation you could possibly imagine.”

Inspired to get started?

You can learn a language the fast, fun and easy way with Babbel.

Different languages make different demands on your tongue, lips and throat. Pronunciation is just as much physical as it is mental: “One way – it might sound a bit strange – is to really look at someone while they’re saying words that use that sound, and then to try to imitate that sound as much as possible. Believe me, it might be difficult at the beginning, but you will. It’s something that is actually quite easily done; you just need to practice it.”

If you can’t watch and imitate a native-speaker in person, watching foreign-language films and TV is a good substitute.

10. DIVE IN So you’ve made the pledge. How to proceed? Is there a proper way to go about learning? Matthew

John-Erik Jordan John-Erik is originally from Los Angeles, California.

He studied art at The Cooper Union in New York and worked as a video editor in LA before turning his attention to writing. Since moving to Berlin in 2009 he’s written for PLAYBerlin, the Hebbel-am-Ufer Theater and various online publications. He’s been writing about languages for Babbel since 2014. https://www.babbel.com

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 55

GSE scholars Charmaine Mangram and Holly Pope found evidence that a math game could improve students’ proficiency.

Education researchers find improvement in students’ math proficiency after using app.

Third-graders who played a novel video math game for 30 minutes a week measurably improved their ability to reason through open-ended math problems, finds a recent study by researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

The study by Holly Pope and Charmaine Mangram, both doctoral candidates in Curriculm Studies and Teacher Education, suggests that math-oriented computer games can help students improve their underlying math proficiency – their ability to think through problems, rather than simply speed up their performance of rote arithmetic.

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Educators have long argued that math curricula need to put a higher emphasis on math proficiency and “numbers sense,” which becomes crucial when students begin learning algebra and other areas of higher mathematics.

But while digital math games are common, most games focus on speeding up standard mathematical operations rather than on the ability to conceptualize problems, use logic and test alternative solutions.

The study, published in the International Journal of Serious Games, was based on a controlled trial of third-graders and a math-learning game called Wuzzit Trouble.

The game was created by Brainquake, a company co-founded by Keith Devlin, director of Stanford’s H-Star Institute as well as the “Math Guy” on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition. Pope and Mangram conducted their study independently of the game’s creator. Because the game could be downloaded for free at the time of the study, neither they nor Devlin had a financial interest in the study’s results.

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Photo: Marc Franklin

Stanford study shows how digital math

games can teach more than rote skills

By Edmund L. Andrews

The goal of the study was to find out if a math-oriented mobile app could improve a student’s proficiency with problems that have multiple constraints and that may have more than one solution path.

In the game, “Wuzzits” are colorful creatures that have been trapped in cages inside a castle. The goal is to free the Wuzzits by aligning the keys with the pointer. To get a key, a player has to turn a combination of small gears the right number of times to reach a particular number. For example, if a player needs to reach a key at 20, and has two smaller gears with four and eight, the player can get to 20 by turning the four gear five times. The player can also get to 20 by turning the eight gear twice and the four gear once.

The Stanford researchers tested the game on 59 third-graders at the Big Dipper Academy in the Big Tree School District of Sequoia, Calif. These students were in two separate classes, taught by the same teacher and placed in each class at the teacher’s discretion.

One class, the comparison group, did not play the game as part of their math instruction, and the other class, the treatment group, did play Wuzzit Trouble.

The comparison group was taught in exactly the same way as before. The treatment group was also taught the same way as before, but their instruction included playing Wuzzit Trouble for 10 minutes in three classes per week over a four-week period.

In a pre-assessment test aimed at measuring numbers sense, the comparison group generally scored better on the test.

In a follow-up test at the end of the four weeks, the gap narrowed significantly. Both groups improved, but the students who played Wuzzit improved far more.

Most of that improvement was tied to a particular problem that required students to answer a more unconventional and open-ended challenge. Students were given a set of digits and a series of challenges and multiple constraints.

players but only 57 percent of the high-performers came up with the highest number.

Both the game and pen-and-paper assessments required students to try, check and revise potential solutions, a structure that the researchers say supports adaptive reasoning and strategic competence.

The researchers argue that the game promotes “productive practice” that goes beyond rote learning and strengthens a person’s ability to “make sense of the problem.”

The broader point, write Pope and Mangram, is that both traditional math classes and many digital math games focus on getting the right answer rather than on the process for getting to the right answer.

“Students who are great memorizers and quick to answer tend to excel in traditional math environments,” they note. But “this creates an atmosphere where very few students feel comfortable in taking risks for fear of getting the wrong answer…We argue that this fixed mindset is [also] evident in many mobile math games available to students.”

Wuzzit Trouble, on the other hand, is one game that allows room for making mistakes and valuing the problem solving process in a low-threat context.

The Wuzzit experiment, they conclude, shows that a math game can strengthen a deeper understanding of mathematics as well as the kind of creative and flexible thinking that is essential to true math proficiency.

Edmund L. Andrews is a freelance journalist who wrote this story for Stanford Graduate School of Education. https://ed.stanford.edu/news/

In the pre-assessment, about 47 percent of the high performers and only 43 percent of the lower performers came up with the largest number. In the postassessment, by contrast, 63 percent of the Wuzzit

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Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 57

The Teacher Made This Young S Mother Shares This Letter If you think back far enough, you will likely remember a time when you cried in school.

Perhaps it was on the playground in elementary school or it may have been because of bullying in junior high.

In any case, we may have snuck off to a quiet corner and had a good cry.

Then again, you may not have ever cried at school but in either case, you will love this story.

Many of us equate tears to sadness but that is not always the case.

At times, tears may flow because we’re simply overwhelmed with emotion, regardless of whether it is happiness, sadness or anything else.

In this story, tears of joy are the subject but it was misunderstood first.

The mother, Abby Martin, didn’t understand why her son Rylan was crying in school but he did tell her he was embarrassed because he did it.

It seems as if the students were set to take their first of many standardized tests. Reading and math tests, such as these, are important for funding for the school district but unfortunately, it can place a lot of stress on the students. That is especially the case when it comes to students like Rylan.

Since it was such a “make or break” moment, the teacher decided to do something about it.

His teacher wrote a beautiful letter, talking about the way that these controversial tests are not a true indicator of the student. It doesn’t matter if it is a love of music, sports or art, math and grammar tests simply cannot reveal it. A test doesn’t know if you are a nice person, it only knows if you are smart or if you are good at taking tests.

When the letter hit the Internet, it certainly did make some noise and it has gone viral.

After discovering why her son was crying, she was also overwhelmed with emotion.

In fact, she decided to share it on Instagram, because it was in the form of a letter from his third grade teacher.

Next week you will take your ISTEP test for math and reading, and two weeks after that you will take your IREAD test. I know how hard you have worked, but there is something very important you must know.

The ISTEP and IREAD tests do not assess all of what makes you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you like I do, and certainly not the way your families do.

They do not know that some of you speak two languages, or that you love to sing or draw. They have not seen your natural talent for dancing. They do

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Student Cry in Class So His not know that your friends count on you to be there for them, that your laughter can brighten the darkest day, or that your face turns red when you feel shy. They do not know that you participate in sports, wonder about the future, or sometimes you help with your little brother or little sister after school. They do not know that you are kind, trustworthy, and thoughtful… and every day you try to be your very best.

The scores you will get from these tests will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything. These

tests do not define you. There are many ways of being smart. YOU are smart! You are enough! You are the light that brightens my day and the reason I am happy to come to work each day. So, in the midst of all these tests, remember that there is no way to “test” all of the amazing and awesome things that make you, YOU. All I ask is that you do your personal best and do not give up. You have been working for this since kindergarten and are ready! I believe in you!

Instagram

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The Lunar Cycle Displayed Through Mademoiselle Maurice recently produced the mural “The Lunar Cycle” in collaboration with the French Mathgoth Gallerie, a temporary piece that pays tribute to the hundreds of residents who were temporarily uprooted due to the upcoming demolition of the building.

Composed of 15,000 colorful origami birds, the piece forms the cycles of the moon against the dark background of the wall and covers over 21,000 square feet of space—making it the largest urban mural ever created in Paris.

painted after folding using a solution deemed “Maurigami”

by Mademoiselle Maurice, making the pieces nearly indestructible.

You can see more of her original origami-based murals on her Instagram and Facebook. (via FaithisTorment)

Each origami is

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h 15,000 Colorful Origami Birds

by Kate Sierzputowski

All images via Mathgoth Gallerie

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For the full urban effect see the cover of this issue!

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Gasana reading to children at the Kigali Reading Center in Rwanda.

(Photo courtesy of Parfait Gasana) 70 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

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By Susan M. Brookhart

What is “data”? Google’s dictionary says data are (yes, the word is plural!) things known or assumed to be facts, which can be used as the basis for reasoning or calculation.

Data doesn’t have to be numbers, although they often are.

Here I offer a few practical tips on using data in schools to inform planning and decision making.

These tips are just a few things I think are very important—they are by no means everything you need to know or do.

Tip #1. Use large-scale data to raise questions. Large-scale assessments, such as state accountability tests, give the “30,000 foot” view of achievement. They are best used to raise questions because they don’t contain enough detailed information to support specific plans. For example, suppose 35 percent of 5th graders in School X score proficient or above in reading on the state test. School X should not jump to a decision (“Let’s hire a reading specialist.”). Rather, they should ask a question: “How can we improve reading in 5th grade?”

Tip #2. Use examples of student work to make tentative conclusions about possible answers to your questions. When you look at student work, examine not only the results but also the kind of assignments students were given in the first place and what student responses tell you about their understanding. A group of teachers and administrators in School X may find, for example, that most of the 5th grade reading assignments asked students for simple comprehension work and that students were rarely asked to make inferences, draw conclusions, or relate what they read to other texts.

Discovering lots of cool thinngs

Tip #3. Your “data-based decisions” should really be action plans based on the answers to your questions.Try out your plan, collect some more data, and see where you are. School X now

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thinks, for example, that the answer to improving reading lies in asking students to think more deeply about what they read in order to develop and extend text-based understanding. So their action plan might be (a) professional development for teachers to help them improve the quality of their assignments and (b) teaching students how to make inferences from texts. Will that action plan be effective? They won’t know until they try and collect some more data—including data about how well the plan was implemented.

Tip #4. The math teacher is your friend.

Not everyone in the school or district needs to be interested in statistics. But in every school or district, there is likely at least one person who is—and maybe even more people than you think.

Avoid making interpretive mistakes that a math teacher could help you avoid. (I once knew a superintendent who was very upset that one-third of his district’s elementary students were below the 40th percentile on a reading test. In fact, one would expect 40 percent (not 33 percent) of students to be below the 40th percentile. Had he just asked a math teacher, he would have saved himself some grief.) Simply ask someone who likes numbers to be part of any group that needs to interpret them.

If you are doing data-based decision making in your school or district, the best way to use these tips may be as lenses to examine the processes in which you are already engaged. If you’re just starting to think about using data, I hope these tips help you approach the process in a thoughtful manner, examine your assumptions, and avoid jumping to conclusions.

Susan M. Brookhart is an independent education consultant based in Helena, Montana who has taught both elementary and middle school. She is the author of several ASCD books, including How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data, How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students, and How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading. She is also the coauthor, with Connie M. Moss, of ASCD’s Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom: A Guide for Instructional Leaders; Formative Classroom Walkthroughs: How Principals and Teachers Collaborate to Raise Student Achievement; and Learning Targets: Helping Students Aim for Understanding in Today’s Lesson. http://inservice.ascd.org/ four-practical-tips-for-using-data-to-inform-planningand-decision-making/ Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 71

YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS M

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MAKING FILMS FOR GOOD What does sustainability mean to you?

Since 2007 The Outlook for Someday has received over a thousand answers to that question by young New Zealanders entering its annual film challenge.

Now in its 10th year The Outlook for Someday is Aotearoa’s New Zealand’s sustainability film project for young people.

To enter the Someday Challenge go to: http://www.theoutlookforsomeday. net/about/film-challenge

It aims to empower a generation of filmmakers focusing on the good of humanity and the world.

For young New Zealanders aged up to 24 the annual Someday Challenge is to make a sustainabilityrelated film of any genre, filmed with any camera and any length up to 5 minutes.

“The heart of The Outlook of Someday is what Helen Clark this year called ‘the potential of youth as a huge force for good in our world - when given the opportunity to contribute and engage,’” said David Jacobs, director of the project.

“It is unashamedly a values-oriented project. Young people care about the world we live in and how it affects them and their communities. If they can contribute and engage with sustainability values they can change the world for good.”

The entry deadline for the film challenge in 2016 is 9 September.

20 winning films will be chosen by judges from media, education, government and business.

Also among the prizes for the film chosen as The Body Shop Standout Winner is a mentorship with Fraser Brown, producer of the multi-award winning Orphans and Kingdoms and a Someday Ambassador.

The film-maker or team behind each of the 20 winning films will be honoured at The Someday Awards red-carpet ceremony at Auckland’s Aotea Centre in December.

As in previous years their prize package will include a commitment their film will be entered into at least one international film festival in 2017.

This prize continues to bring international acclaim for young New Zealand film-makers. In 2015 Te Ao o te Tuturuatu by Tomairangi Harvey won the Best Young Film-maker Award at the Japan Wildlife Film Festival.

In 2016 Message in a Bottle by Liam van Eeden and Jean-Martin Fabre is the first of the 2015 winning films to be nominated internationally – for the Green Screen International Wildlife Film Festival in Germany.

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THE OUTLOOK FOR SOMEDAY PARTNERS: The Outlook for Someday in 2016 is based on partnerships between Connected Media Charitable Trust and The Body Shop New Zealand, New Zealand Film Commission, Ministry of Youth Development, Department of Conservation (through the DOC Community Fund), Health Promotion Agency and Auckland Council.

Media Partners are Maori Television, The Wireless, The Coconet, The Adam & Eve Show, What Now, Tearaway, Upstart and Screenz.

Funding Partners are Te Mangai Paho, Creative New Zealand’s Creative Communities Scheme, The Trusts Community Foundation, Four Winds Foundation and Dragon Community Trust.

Regional Partners are Foundation North, Trust Waikato, Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust, Eastern and Central Community Trust, Wellington Community Trust, Rata Foundation, West Coast Community Trust, Otago Community Trust and Community Trust of Southland.

Rockstock and Soar Printing are Paper and Print Partners.

Auckland Live, Karma Cola and Austin’s are Event Partners.

Photogear is Technology Partner and the Directors and Editors Guild of New Zealand is Industry Partner.

O’Halloran North Shore is Accountancy Partner and Stephens Lawyers is Honorary Legal Advisor.

Hello Monday is HR Partner and Toimata Foundation is Supporting Partner.

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Finding the Best Value in Online Edu Online classes can be a great way for busy professionals to pursue their educational goals while balancing a full-time job and other responsibilities.

motivation required for students to achieve mastery of the material so they can apply it to their daily work in their career. In order to show why skill development and mastery are so important, we first need to define the four levels of learning:

They can also, unfortunately, be a big waste of time and money.

Level 1 - Awareness. This is the level of learning

Many online classes are little more than a slideshow presentation with a quiz at the end - an uninspiring format that does little to help students learn.

In this month’s Know How Network, we discuss the features that make for highquality online education programs that intrinsically motivate students to learn and deliver the most value to students.

Over the past 20 years, we here at Cheetah Learning have discovered that for online classes to have lasting impact, they must have cohesive curricula that engage all four levels of learning: awareness, knowledge, skills, and mastery. For people looking to become Certified Project Managers, for example, many online classes will successfully introduce new material to students at the levels of awareness and knowledge. However, online programs need to engage students at the level of skills and mastery to really have an impact on their Project Management abilities, whether their goal is to pass the very difficult Project Management Professional (PMP) exam or to bring out the best in themselves and others by becoming a Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM).

The best online classes will inspire students by increasing their awareness of why they need to master the course material. This creates the intrinsic

where you become aware of the range of knowledge possible but have not yet acquired that knowledge. For example, many people think that doing Project Management requires no specialized training or skills. They are not even aware there is a whole body of knowledge relating to efficiently do projects more effectively.

When they start to realize that there are in fact numerous skills they could acquire that would help them become more successful with their projects, they have achieved the first level of learning - awareness. The first step in all Cheetah Learning courses (online and classroom), at this awareness level, is to create intrinsic motivation to learn more about the course’s topic.

Level 2 - Knowledge. Once students are aware

there is a lot more to learn about the topic of the online class and how the material can help them with their specific learning goals, they then have intrinsic motivation to acquire more knowledge about the course material.

Online classes will often teach its course material by providing examples; online classes in Project Management, for instance, may have students work through scenarios related to government IT projects - regardless of the student’s background or industry. Learning by example, however, is not the same thing as learning in your own environment. Everything always seems to work out so nicely in the examples, doesn’t it? This is where the limits of “knowledge” are most obvious. To do the hard work of putting skills into practice in the complicated, messy reality of life, you need to move beyond Knowledge to Skills.

Level 3 - Skill. When students develop real skills

in an area, they have advanced beyond the level of being able to understand just hypothetical situations. They are now able to identify the most relevant areas of their new knowledge and make them work for their unique career goals. For instance, in Cheetah Learning’s online Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) program, students

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ucation

By Michelle LaBrosse,CCPM, PMP®, PMI-ACP, and Founder of Cheetah Learning develop strong negotiation skills specific to their personality type by applying what they learn about negotiating in their daily work.

Cheetah Certified Project Managers not only know the various negotiation techniques that can throw them off, but they are able to swiftly and appropriately respond to these in the heat of the moment because they developed the skills to do so in the Cheetah training program.

Level 4 - Mastery. Skills are closely tied to

mastery. Mastery, however, is only reached when you make consistent deliberate practice with your skills - and it always takes time. For example, you reach mastery with your negotiation skills when you consistently practice negotiating using the processes you have learned. Mastery is no small achievement - when you reach this level in one or several skill areas, you develop expertise. Online classes very rarely bring students to the level of mastery of the material - let alone give students the basic skills they need to reach mastery on their own.

lectures with no opportunity to apply what is described, then learning takes place only at the lowest level. When deciding where to go for online education, make sure to invest in a program that moves you beyond awareness and knowledge and into the realms that matter most - skills and mastery.

If you’re looking to move beyond awareness to mastery of Project Management skills in an online class tailored to your own unique strengths, consider taking Cheetah Learning’s Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) program. This 60-hour online class develops students’ skills in doing projects, negotiating, and adopting accelerated learning techniques by taking them through exercises drawn from their own environment. Read more at www.cheetahlearning. com.

Online classes can be a key step to advancing your career in any field. To be effective, however,the program must be focused on application of knowledge in the student’s own environment. If the online class revolves around only memorization of information or About the Author: Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, is an entrepreneurial powerhouse with a penchant for making success easy, fun, and fast. She is the founder of Cheetah Learning, the author of the Cheetah Success Series, and a prolific blogger whose mission is to bring Project Management to the masses.

Cheetah Learning is a virtual company with 100 employees, contractors, and licensees worldwide. To date, more than 50,000 people have become “Cheetahs” using Cheetah Learning’s innovative Project Management and

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accelerated learning techniques.

Honored by the Project Management Institute (PMI®), Cheetah Learning was named Professional Development Provider of the Year at the 2008 PMI® Global Congress. A dynamic keynote speaker and industry thought leader, Michelle is recognized by PMI as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the world.

Michelle also developed the Cheetah Certified Project Manager (CCPM) program based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality profiling to help students master how to use their unique strengths for learn is recognized by PMI as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the world.

Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016 75

French Artist Transforms Boring Scenes Full Of Life Imagine yourself coming back home from a long trip and… not being able to find it.

This might actually happen if you lived in one of the buildings that got touched by this talented French street artist Patrick Commecy. Together with his team, he creates huge murals of hyper-realistic facades that bring blank and boring city walls to life.

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What’s interesting here is that while these realistic yet fake facades trick you at first glance, some of the people painted there were once real. Commecy often paints many notable people from the history of the town the mural is in.

Can you spot any of them?

More info: a-fresco.com

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g City Walls Into Vibrant

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by Renata

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http://www.boredpanda.com/

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Nineteen Amazing Pictures Shocked Doctors (No. 17 is unb I used to be ever-so-smug when I told people that I didn’t have a TV. I have been tubeless for nearly eight years, although with the demise of the cathode ray tube, perhaps I should say LEDfree, or LCD-graded or non-plasmatic.

Infrequent overnights in motels reinforced my superior feelings. I’d commandeer the remote and, if it had viable batteries, would channel-surf the dozens of options. Confirmation biassated, I’d switch off with a sneering, ‘All of it is absolute rubbish,’ or something similar.I’d enjoy responding to questions like, ‘Did you see The Batchelor the other night?’ or, ‘Don’t you get fed up with all the ads on TV?’ I’d condescendingly ignite my Mona Lisa smirk and remind my interlocutor that my premises were TV-free. To pre-empt the inevitable questions about missing out on current events I’d mention that I kept up to date online and surprise them with the latest news: ‘Oh by the way, the All Blacks won the World Cup, you know?’

For a few years now, I have been aware that the forces of mind-pollution have been advancing inexorably onto the ramparts of the internet. Advertisements 84 Good Teacher Magazine Term 3 2016

ambush most of my downloaded content. Doughty defenders can be obtained which will block ads but with every advance in armour technology, the attackers find another way to infiltrate.

It’s not always easy to negotiate the minefields of advertorials, pop-ups (or is it downs?) and questionnaires which promise rich rewards to the respondents but only result in a 6.00 pm call from some poor, minimum-waged soul, reminding me that I expressed interest in donating to a charity which comforts those whose feelings were hurt over Brexit.

Apparently there are some worthwhile series on television. My children tell me about them. Being someone who is prepared to wait a bit, I’ll head down to the local video shop after a couple of years and get a complete set for a marathon perusal. Sometimes it’s a bit tricky, as the shop seems to cater mainly for those who have quite specific tastes, so I have to sort through titles like Kung Fu Nuns or Zombies on a Plane and suchlike.

However, my clear and present peeve does not concern the plethora of Web commercials. I can ignore these, mostly.

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s of the All Blacks which

believable!)

What has got my male knickers in a twist is what passes for news and what used to be termed ‘current events’ when I stood in front of a blackboard. Now, that ages me, doesn’t it? Blackboard?

Tabloid journalism has crept off the pages of the weekly magazines and has oozed itself into many sites which purport to dispense newsworthy content.

Sometimes my calcifying brain finds it difficult to weed out the wheat from the chaff and I fall into the click-bait trap. Instead of being enlightened by reading about the latest advance in neurosurgery, I find that I have clicked myself into a discourse about what the Kardashians eat for breakfast, or how Prince George loves corgis, or that Sonny Bill Williams is being touted to host the Breakfast Show.

And while I’m at it, when I find a genuine piece of news, often I am frustrated with the lack of editorial rigour. Online news sites are often quick at reporting events as they occur, which is great. Often initial reports are speculative, with what eventually turns out to be incorrect information. That is to be expected and forgiven. What is not

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forgivable, is that when things become clearer and facts are established, these are published in the same article without the previous ‘information’ being deleted.

How long does it take a writer to read through his article and toss out what is no longer relevant? Paste and cut, Mr/ Mrs/Ms journalist, please!

And while I’m still at it, why on earth do some news articles have a comments’ section? The idea of a free forum is nice but a thoughtful debate is very rare.

Mostly the comments’ sections act like an Epsom salts poultice on a boil, drawing out people who think that an insult is an acceptable way to disagree with a point of view. Some barely literate individuals finally get a chance to air their bigotry and loopy liberals spout self-righteous rhetoric. Conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics vie for the most down-votes and smartarses insert atrocious puns. Come to think of it, why do some items have a comments’ section and some don’t? I smell a conspiracy.

Oh the humanity!

I think I’ll get television.

Roger

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“The best teachers don’t give you the answers...

They just point the way ...

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and let you make your own choices.”