Posts

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

Common Core as a Staircase Presented by Gerber Life Insurance Company.

Describing and defining Common Core challenges most people who are not familiar with education.  One way to explain it is to imagine that the K-12 grades are giant staircases.  Gerber Life Insurance Company (who even know such a thing existed) gives a message on its website that the Common Core standards are vital for parents of babies and toddlers to understand. First, on the webpage is the video that presents staircases analogy. You see, before Common Core there were different staircases so that a student who would be working at one grade level in one state, say, Florida, would be at another grade level if he/she moved to another state (think Kansas). This has changed. Currently, now that Common Core has been initiated in most states the standards are aligned so that a student working at one grade level in one state will be at the same grade level if they move to another. For example, students studying linear equations in eighth grade in Florida will move into the same t...
6 comments
Read more

10 Tips for Writing a Better Personal Essay

Writing a personal essay involves including elements of narration and description. Here are 10 tips to make your essay a smashing success. 1. Make a point in your narration with a thesis statement in the introduction. For example, when I was about 10 years old, I hid some Halloween candy from my brothers, only to have my black poodle find and eat it. My thesis for this narrative could be: The lure of candy to a child can cause him or her to ensure its security by putting it in a safe place away from parents and siblings who are likely to eat it; however, the child can still lose if he/she doesn't consider every family member. Within an hour, my vast collection of Snickers bars, Hershey's kisses, sour hard candy, bubble gum, and Tootsie Rolls among other sweets transformed into a sticky mess of wrapper pieces and big dark wads of chocolate when I forgot an important member of my family would find it. The trick-or-treating began innocently enough... 2. Add cre...
6 comments
Read more

Are Syllogisms a Missing Part of Common Core?

Some educators have rejected Common Core based on its lack of critical thinking with regards to an argument (see links below).  Syllogisms help you to find out if an argument you have created for an essay is logical. Understanding them is tough. Seeing examples of them in color coded text reveals that there is a pattern you can set up to come up with a conclusion from two claims. You can use the following examples to develop a syllogism for your paper. An example of a syllogism is: Claim 1:  All mammals are warm-blooded animals. Claim 2: Warm blooded animals have a constant body temperature . Mammals such as whales have a constant body temperature . Logical Syllogisms   Syllogisms check to see if your argument in valid. Let's take a look at the following logical syllogism: An example of a syllogism is California is a state ; All states have unique elected governments . California has a unique elected government.   Let's take a look at...
Post a Comment
Read more

Finding One-Hour Lesson Plans on the Internet

Teachers often have problems finding good one-hour lesson plans on the Internet. The first is that the plans available are not complete, consisting only of one activity. The second is that plans are often part of a series, each dependent upon what was covered in another plan. Teacher candidates need to know that when a professor or instructor ask for a lesson plan, he/she most likely would be referring to a one-period plan that is independent from other plans. An independent plan offers teachers a plan that consists of activities that are not a continuation of another plan. While an independent lesson plan offers new curriculum, it doesn't necessarily have to include prerequisites for implementing the plan. Any Common Core lesson needs to have a portion of the plan directed to an activity that stimulates students' prior knowledge about the topic. After that portion of the plan is covered, most students will be on the same page with respect to knowing enough about a top...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blogging Basics for Educators

Image
Blogging Basics Presentation for Educators Last year, I gave a presentation about blogging. Integrating blogging into a lesson covers many standards at all grade levels. No matter what the topic is of a blog post, it will cover quite a few standards related to writing. The more the teacher is involved in the blog, the more standards that will be covered. If a teacher provides frequent feedback on the blog, permitting students to rewrite posts, most of the writing process steps are covered (brainstorming, outlining, rough draft, revision and editing. Since blogging is a published product, the last step of the writing process is included in a way like no other, as the post, if it is made public, has the potential to be viewed by thousands of people. This presentation presents a rational for National University faculty and students in education and other fields to incorporate blogging as a communicative learning strategy applied to teaching in a wide variety of courses. Data ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Don't Like Common Core? Think Twice about an Alternative--Gulen Charter Schools

This is very strange. Three news stories bridge to the Gulen Movement, a large enterprise whose top staff was arrested in Turkey. http://mashable.com/…/journalists-and-tv-producers-detaine…/ Evidently this movement is alive and well in the U.S. Among its many assets are charter schools. Check this out: http://www.theatlantic.com/…/120-american-charter-s…/375923/ Finally, you might want to know that a charter school near you ( http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/…/lab…/*California ) is a Gulen school--a strict, academic math/science curriculum. Is there a twist? More about Gulen Schools and Common Core
Post a Comment
Read more

Library of Congress Search Common Core Lesson Plan Search Engine for English/Language Arts

Many teachers are concerned about finding lesson plans that meet the Common Core standards, not to mention materials and resources that they can use to teach them. The Library of Congress Teachers website offers both. The website contains an simple drop-down search menu that allows teachers to pull up lesson plans with corresponding resources in the Library of Congress' collection. Explore this copious online platform for instant lessons and materials that meet specific Common Core objectives. The search enables teachers to search for a lesson by grade level that links to  both student and teacher resources for the lesson. The teacher's resources include activities and step-by-step lesson plan tabs. The student resources contains links to readings and tasks that contain image galleries and multimedia. A good example of a lesson for fourth grade is " The Civil War though a Child's Eyes ," an enormous learning experience for students to see the Civil War as ...
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