Posts

Showing posts from July, 2020

What Happened to Ebonics?

Image
Turmoil in 1980s Oakland Leads to Continued Definitive Conclusions about Language’s Impact on Education in the 2020s by Matthew Bamberg Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash The Ebonics debate has often been misunderstood. It refers to the dialect of AAVE (African American Vernacular English). This type of language is prevalent in the Black community and has also spread into popular culture through lyrics in rap music and similar genres. I be workin’ Yes, I be workin’ on this article. This can be defined as: I’ve been working on this article for a while, although not necessarily at this very moment. I begin here because using AAVE helps readers understand the importance of training teachers to use it in our classrooms. Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the point, AAVE is an important dialect and, therefore, should be treated with the utmost respect, especially when dealing with it as a teacher. Slavery was Brutal The history of AAVE in the United States began in the 17th and 18t...
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Great Free Resources for Online Learning in the Arts

Google Arts and Culture has virtual field trips. Library of Congress contains films and video of historical events. PBS Learning Media   brings you standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more.   New York Times Learning Multimedia to find out what's going on in pictures and graphs.  Smithsonian Learning Lab includes ways to develop your own interactive learning experiences-or adopt exemplars made by teachers and Smithsonian experts.
Post a Comment
Read more

Six Challenges for English Learners (ELs)

Image
Here are some challenges for English Learners (ELLs) with links for ideas about how to resolve them: 1. Academic language--for some of the best ideas look to Ana Chamot, as she developed CALLA , which is the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach.  2. Idioms and figurative language--The Amelia Bedelia books are great for teaching idioms and figurative language.  3. Sound/letter correspondence-- Phonics is a great subject for teaching sound/letter correspondence.  4. Sequence of events--Teach the sequence of events using lesson plan for the Very Hungry Caterpillar .  5. Cause and effect--Use a multi-flow graphic organizer/thinking map   for cause and effect.  6. Inferences--Check out good videos about teaching inferences . 
1 comment
Read more

Common Core for Teachers

Image
Post a Comment
Read more

World Cultures are the focus of the National Endowment for the Humanities Lesson Plans

Image
Angkor Wat Buddhist monument photo by Matthew Bamberg A good set of world history lesson plans is available from the NEH. The plans include multicultural topics that cover Asian history and culture . The Angkor Wat lesson is particularly noteworthy in that these ruins in Cambodia is the largest religious monument in the world.
Post a Comment
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

STEM Wildfire Education Necessity

Image
  California Wildfires Are Getting Worse. Why Schools Must Teach Fire Survival Now From science to social-emotional learning, a comprehensive approach is needed to safeguard communities from natural and man-made hazards Wildfire in the Inland Empire of Southern California as seen from the desert. Photo by Matthew Bamberg Communities in California and elsewhere have shown remarkable resilience in uniting to cope and heal after a wildfire. Yet wildfires will remain a critical challenge, especially during droughts. The future doesn’t have to mirror the past. To ensure a safer tomorrow, California’s education system must prioritize wildfire preparedness and mitigation as a core part of its curriculum. A New Interdisciplinary Wildfire Curriculum The current model of isolating academic disciplines is inadequate for preparing students to face the uncertain world shaped by climate change. A significant curriculum overhaul is urgently needed to equip students with the skills and knowledge t...
Read more

Social Emotional Skills and Holistic Education

Holistic education focuses on students identity in order for them to become good  community members by teachers instituting appropriate  moral, social, emotional, psychological and academic goals for functioning as a productive member of society.  As a teacher, you have to consider what's going on in students' lives order to teach the students coping skills to deal with challenging situations. Holistic education can really help students who are falling behind. Creating engaging lessons that reach all students is the primary focus of planning for instruction in most schools.  You can combine this inclusion with extensive education in all areas. "All students will learn the skills they need to succeed across all domains, including social, cognitive and academic" (Schwartz as cited in Volk, 2013, para. 5). Students perform better academically when teachers address the social emotional needs of students Socio-emotional skills are for school, work and life. They inc...
Read more

Writing a Personal Essay

Writing a personal essay doesn't have to be hard. One would think that the most important part of a personal essay would be writing a draft. This isn't so. While it is important, there are other parts of the writing process that are just as important for writing a focused "A" paper. One of the first tasks you do before you write the rough draft is to have a topic that is appropriate for a personal essay. As you may recall, a personal essay should be written in first person, usually about an account of an event, a story about a person, a travelogue of a place or  an illustration of an object (in words) that is or was special to you. Well, does that mean you should write about your mom, your childbirth (if you're a woman) or your vacation? Any of these topics are a good choice for a personal essay. Recall that the writing process: 1. Brainstorming--Create your topic. Narrow it down. 2. Outlining--Yes, this is necessary! 3. Drafting--Writing your draft f...
Read more