March 3, 2016

Delaware

Cape Gazette
Bike to the future
They didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but high school students at a recent engineering competition took top prize for reinventing the bicycle using cardboard. Alexandra Kachinsky and Duncan Galloway from St. Georges Technical School in Middletown were top-prize winners in the first-ever Mid-Atlantic High School Bicycle Design STEM Competition, held Feb. 19-20 at the Atlantic Sands in Rehoboth Beach. In addition to the team from St. Georges, only two other students entered the competition, which encouraged using science, technology, engineering and math or STEM to improve the design or use of bicycles.

Delaware Business Now
Rodel Teacher Council holds professional development session
Close to 200 local educators took charge of their professional development during an interactive workshop at St. Georges Technical High School in Middletown. Lessons, strategies and personalized learning tools were all part of the second annual Personalized Learning Workshop presented by the Rodel Teacher Council. Billed as a workshop for teachers, by teachers—the day featured sessions led by Rodel Teacher Council members representing elementary, middle, and high school classrooms throughout the state, as well as early childhood, CTE and special education.

Rodel Blog
Big money and summer experiences: March 2016 teacher newsletter
Each year, the Delaware Teacher Institute (DTI) offers a limited number of fellowships for teachers to participate in content area seminars, and to learn the Teachers Institute approach to professional development. Participating school districts include: Appoquinimink, Christina, Colonial, New Castle County Vo-Tech, and Red Clay Consolidated School District.

Strength in numbers at early childhood conference
Blog post by Michelle Wilson, kindergarten teacher at Booker T. Washington Elementary School
As co-chair of the Birth–Grade 3 Alignment Committee under the Delaware Early Childhood Council, I had a unique experience of helping facilitate the Stronger Together Conference that was held last December at Dover Downs. The purpose of this conference was to bring together preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teachers, along with administrators, to open up the dialogue and ease those student transitions from birth to age five and the K-12 system. The committee members worked diligently to facilitate conversations among the three levels of learning throughout the day, first through small, group-guided questions that were discussed at the intermixed tables.

Sussex County Post
The defense rests! SCHS blazes new trail in state mock trial competition
Sussex Central High School blazed a pioneering trail last week when it became the first team ever from Sussex County to advance to the championship round of the Delaware State Mock Trial Competition. SCHS’s second-place finish was the highest ever for a Sussex County team in the competition’s 25-year history. This year’s annual competition, held Feb.26-27, was sponsored by the Delaware Law Related Education Center (DLREC).

Markell to visit winners in STEM innovation excellence through education
Innovation and excellence through instruction are the focus of Delaware Gov. Jack Markell’s scheduled stops Thursday at two Indian River School District schools. Gov. Markell will visit the district’s three 2015 winners of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Educator Awards: Robert Gibson, Jeffrey Kilner and Travis Bower. The awards were presented in January at the STEM Council’s annual awards reception in Wilmington.

National

Huffington Post
Blended learning helps students at different cognitive levels
What is the best way to meet today’s students “in the middle?” Kids today are more tech-savvy than ever before, and teachers are struggling to make sure that every student is educated according to their needs. From elementary to secondary school, students learn at different rates and have varying needs of social and educational interaction. How do we use cognitive data and blended learning to the students’ benefit?

Nashville Public Radio
Tennessee’s switch back to paper tests wasn’t as simple as it sounds
The Tennessee Department of Education says it has shipped a million test booklets to schools over the last two weeks after abandoning computer-based exams for the year. And even paper tests have glitches. First there was the printing. The testing company — Measurement Inc. — knew it would need a few backup paper copies, but not a million. Most districts have now received the materials, according to a TDOE spokesperson. In some cases, they were delivered directly to the schools’ doorstep. But for some, the boxes still arrived a few days late — forcing another delay.

New American Ed Central
Paying for teacher professional development and textbooks shouldn’t be either/or
A letter to the editor in the Des Moines Register last week exposes a new concern for teachers: Could funding for professional development soon be consumed by textbook companies? “In my 13 years as a public school educator, I have never attended effective professional development provided by a textbook publisher,” wrote Janice Arthur, a middle school teacher in Johnson, Iowa, in her letter. She continued: “to imply that teachers need only a textbook and a teacher’s manual to educate today’s students shows a profound ignorance of the profession.”

The Hechinger Report
Did you say free? Educators turn to textbooks that cost nothing, as U.S. Department of Education throws its weight behind them
The avant-garde of educators on social media went aflutter last week as the U.S. Department of Education announced new developments in its effort to assist schools that embark on plans to ditch old-school textbooks. Emblazoning their social media posts with #GoOpen, teachers, principals, advocacy organizations and trade groups rallied behind what the department described as “high-quality, openly-licensed educational resources” for K-12 schools. Worth noting: These books and materials are free.

WMDT 47
McAuliffe vetoes bill banning adoption of Common Core
The Democratic governor says the bill is unnecessary. He says the state has no intention of adopting the Common Core Standards because Virginia’s educational current standards are more rigorous. But he says he opposes hampering the state board of education’s authority “by adopting unnecessary legislation.” Virginia is among just a handful of states that haven’t adopted the Common Core standards, which are math and English benchmarks.