May 19, 2015

Delaware News

Newsworks
The MOOC heads back to high school in Delaware
MOOC is short-hand for Massive Open Online Course, and Liz Boaman, an accounting and business teacher at Caesar Rodney High School, is on the front lines of one of the nation’s first MOOCs for high school students. Since last fall she has been an on-site “coachs” for an AP Computer Science MOOC created by the education services firm Amplify.

The News Journal
How business leaders can help ignite innovation
Opinion by Nick Lambrow, president of M&T Bank Delaware Region
Business leaders are often the crystallizing link in engaging students by sharing real world experience and igniting curiosity that leads to the great innovations of tomorrow.

Coastal Point
Keeping it professional: Making IRHS students into business pros
Business Professionals of America introduces students to the real world of business, and IRHS students emerged triumphant from the spring competition at Dover Downs, where hundreds of students showed their business prowess in research, administration, finance, communication, marketing and more.

Associated Press
Cecil County Public Library honored with National Medal
First lady Michelle Obama presented the 2015 National Medal for Museum and Library Service to library Director Denise Davis and community member Thomas Cousar at the White House on Monday.

International Society for Technology in Education
Turn your classroom into a personalized learning environment
Robyn Howton, English teacher at Mount Pleasant High School and member of the Rodel Teacher Council
Over the last two years, I have transformed my traditional classroom into a blended learning environment that provides a more personalized learning experience for each one of my students. It hasn’t been easy. It’s taken a lot of research, trial and error, and adjustments on my part. But the results have definitely been worth it. Here are five lessons I have learned that have helped me take my classroom from a traditional sage-on-the-stage affair to a tech-assisted personalized learning haven.

National News

The Tennessean
10,700+ apply for tuition-free technical college
More than 10,700 adults have applied to take advantage of a state grant that would send them to technical college tuition-free, exceeding initial estimates by more than 2,000.

Stars Tribune
Gov. Dayton threatens to veto budget over early education
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton is fighting to ensure that his signature priority – universal preschool – becomes part of a final budget agreement, issuing a veto threat and rallying Democratic allies in the House and the state party.

Education Week
Sen. Rand Paul, presidential candidate, not opposed to national testing
Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and 2016 presidential candidate, talked education during an interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, during which he said that he’s not against national testing, despite his anti-federal-meddling attitude. Though to be sure, he’s still very much opposed to a national curriculum.

Dallas Morning News
Pearson loses Texas contract for standardized exams
Pearson, the only company to have handled Texas’ public school standardized tests, probably won’t be running the next four years of STAAR. The Texas Education Agency decided to offer most of a new testing contract to rival ETS.

The Hechinger Report
Vocational degrees that pay off
Is there any evidence that a vocational certification or a degree pay off as job training? A new California study concludes that in some fields, especially healthcare, the answer is yes. In other fields, not so much.