December 2008

Letter from the Editor

A great introduction to why education needs to incorporate more innovative uses of technology is the YouTube video entitled Education Today and Tomorrow. Enjoy! Our Feature Article is a look at a court-based truancy reduction program that has been highly successful in moving kids out of negative peer groups by using ankle and cell phone monitoring, and into school by offering lots of support and personal encouragement. In Strategy of the Month, read about a fascinating technological innovation in a chemistry classroom that allows lectures to be recorded and viewed as homework, so that class time becomes a giant tutoring session with lots of personal student-teacher contact.

AIM-ing for School Success in Dallas
By
Paul S. Pottinger, Ph.D, CEO
Center for Criminal Justice Solutions, LLC

AIM not only gets truants to SHOW UP – by itself a key life skill – but it also supports schools in helping kids to CATCH UP by motivating them to participate in tutoring and credit recovery. Students cannot CATCH UP if they do not SHOW UP.

Research Results

In one of three six-week AIM pilots to date, a formal study was undertaken at a Dallas ISD high school to compare 46 AIM pilot truants with 46 control group truants. All students were under the jurisdiction of the court and represented the bottom 1/10^th of 1% of the district’s high school enrollment, students at the highest risk of dropping out.

The AIM pilot truants and the control group students were matched for age, gender, ethnicity and grade. Iowa Test of Basic Skills scores for both groups, in reading and math, were not significantly different.

During the pilot, the participating AIM students’ attendance improved from an average of just over five unexcused class absences per week, prior to the AIM pilot, to an average class attendance of 97% (see chart below). The 23 best performing AIM pilot truants (50%) achieved an average class attendance of 99.75%.

The control group students also averaged more than five unexcused class absences per week pre-pilot, but they did not significantly improve during the AIM pilot. Furthermore, differences between the AIM students and the control group during the pilot, in total and by ethnicity and gender, were statistically significant (p=.001).

Besides near-perfect class attendance during the AIM program, qualitative research using standardized surveys and interviews showed marked improvements in students’ classroom behavior, attitudes toward school, learning engagement and grades.

Finally, the number of AIM students still enrolled in the Dallas ISD system, after one-and-a-half years since the end of the pilot, was 150% of the control group student’s enrollment.

Over the upcoming 2008-2009 spring semester, AIM will evaluate 600 high school truants under court jurisdiction, half in the AIM program and half in a matching control group.

Discussion and Summary

Location verification enables AIM coaches to give truants immediate guidance if they start to go astray. More importantly, the cell phone device gives kids an excuse to “opt out” of negative peer pressure – to stay out of trouble – because they are being monitored. It gives students a six-week free pass or “holiday” from negative peer pressure and a unique opportunity for our coaches to encourage and guide students to “try out” new attitudes and behaviors.

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How does Curious George learn Chemistry?Answer: Upside Down, of course!

And so do kids studying from award-winning chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams at WoodlandParkHigh School. Their technique – vodcasting turns classes on their heads. That which was class lecture is now homework, and that which was homework is now done in class. The upshot is this: 1) Kids are never on their own struggling with homework they don’t understand, and doing it incorrectly or not at all, because the teachers are always present during work time. And 2) the class lecture never keeps going on, evaporating into the air while students ponder what was said several minutes ago or what’s for lunch several minutes hence; they can backup the vodcast again and again until they “get it”.

So what’s a vodcast? It’s a podcast with a voice-over and a “pen-over,” too. The teachers use software called SnapKast to add recordings of their voices and their own pen marks to a PowerPoint. In this way, they record their lectures. Lectures can be recorded during class for those who are absent or who want to review again later. Or they can be pre-recorded for everyone. And here’s where the upside-down part comes in. Since Bergmann and Sams were recording all their lectures, they started wondering what class was really needed for; the answer may be more obvious in chemistry than other subjects – labs! By requiring students to watch vodcasts for homework before class, oodles of class time is freed up for students to work through problems and labs. Class becomes a giant tutoring session – “controlled chaos” in the teachers’ words.

One natural consequence of the flip is that kids can work at their own pace. But that has its own consequences as well… Kids can actually be required to master content before they move on, so the minimum acceptable test grade is now 85%. If kids don’t achieve the minimum they have to retake the test. This opens up the door for monkey business: preventing procrastinating and cheating requires a little more tinkering. Since kids can try exams multiple times, Bergmann and Sams use Moodle software to change the numerical values in the test questions, resulting in a “different” test every time. To prevent procrastinating, they modified the grading scheme to include incentives for keeping up. The only way to fail is to get way behind. And, of course, they needed tricks to ensure kids actually watch the vodcasts.

So before you know it, they whole pedagogical system is on its head, but everyone agrees it’s working better. The teachers report getting to know their students better, faster. Not to preach to the choir, but we know that having good relationships with teachers is critical to school engagement. Kids loved it right away, because technology is cool, dude. Parents bought in because their kids were learning more, and they can watch with the kids and learn chemistry too. Seems like a great parent involvement tool, which is another predictor of student engagement. In high mobility schools, students who enroll late or transfer mid-semester can catch up to their peers without overburdening the teacher with extra tutoring work. And administrators take note – test scores are up

Their Educational Vodcasting website, linked above, has a tutorial that walks you through everything you need to do this yourself (except the Dramamine). If that isn’t quite enough, they’ll do coaching at your school. And if you’re not quite ready to do it yourself, you can purchase vodcasts of an entire year’s high school regular chemistry curricula, or the AP chemistry curricula, for $25 plus shipping. If this isn’t enough to make George curious about chemistry, what is?

Compiled from the website by Jodi Heilbrunn, editor, with assistance from Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, chemistry teachers and educational innovators.

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Check out the Education World Grant Center, there are fifteen grant categories you have time to apply for in the 2008-2009 school year.

The School Funding Center has a free newsletter that includes a limited number of grant announcements and grant writing tips. It also advertises a huge database of grants to which you may subscribe for various periods of time for different rates ranging from $99 for two months to $397 for a year. Grants are available for schools and non-profits.

Kids love field trips! Target will award 5,000 Field Trip Grants of up to $800 each during the 2008-2009 school year. Applications are due by November 1, 2008. Check out the rest of the education page on the Target website.

Sign up for education-related e-mail alerts from Grantsalert.com. The website also includes grant-seeking tips, a special page for sources of classroom funding for teachers (called GSFT), and a directory of grant writers to help you. Registering for funding alerts is free, but the grant writers, of course, are not.

Teachers, go to Donors Choose to make requests for classroom supplies.

Find and apply online for competitive grant opportunities from all Federal grant-making agencies.

RGK Foundation - The Foundation's programmatic areas of interest include Health, Education, Human Services, and Community Affairs. The Foundation's primary interests within education include formal K-12 education, literacy, and higher education.

The Dollar General offers annual or bi-annual grants in five literacy areas:
· Adult Literacy Grants
· Back-To-School Grants
· Beyond Words: The Dollar General School Library Relief
Program
· Family Literacy Grants
· Youth Literacy Initiatives

Here’s a great webpage that lists endless grant opportunities for K-12 schools, and has a page on grant writing tips! They also offer a subscription to Schoolgrants Biweekly Newsletter for $45 a year.

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Lipmann, L. and A. Rivers. (October 2008.) ASSESSING SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT: A GUIDE FOR OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME PROGRAM PRACTITIONERS. Child Trends Publication #2008-39. This is a concise review of why school engagement matters, and how out-of-school programs can improve it among the students they serve. It also reproduces Fredericks’ school engagement scale.

Balfanz, Robert, et al. (November 2008). Grad Nation: A Guidebook to Help Communities Tackle the Dropout Crisis. WashingtonDC: America’s Promise Alliance

This is the best tool for dropout prevention we have seen yet. It has four parts, focusing on drumming up community support to address the problem of high school dropout, ways to gain understanding of the nature of dropout in your own community, comprehensive solutions, and creating lasting change. It is a tool, not a research paper, perfectly designed for busy people to get right to what they need and bypass what they already know. In addition to succinct summaries and guidelines, wonderful resources are linked (as long as you are online) in the Deeper Look sections, and tools are linked in the bar on the right.

21^st Century Schools conducts more workshops and conferences on more topics in more locations that I can possibly include in the Conference section below. Go to their website and pick your next professional development experience.

K-12 Conference Website: This is an on-line listing for many types of conferences, with K-12 Education Conferences selected as a sub-category.

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Navigating the Seas to Success: Stay the Course to Graduation.
Belleview Biltmore Hotel and Spa
Location: Clearwater, FL
Dates: January 13-16, 2009

www.schoolengagement.org

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