Kathie Nunley's Educator's Newsletter
---Mid Summer 2005 Edition--- (current subscribers: 15,063)
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News and updates to http://brains.org and Kathie Nunley's
Layered Curriculum (tm) Site for Educators: http://help4teachers.com

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SECTION ONE: Teaching Tips -
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Teaching Tip #1: Put vocabulary words on a transparency. Show them
on your white board or screen. Give 2 students fly swatters and the first
one who swats the right word after you give the definition, wins.
no-name, Workshop participant, Pequea Valley, PA.

Teaching Tip # 2: In my Business CIS class, each six weeks I give a new
seating assignment to every student so that they may sit by someone new.
That way the students must learn to get along with everyone and be forced to
socialize with others. If this is not forced upon them, they will stick with
their little clic. Sue Martinez, Anson HS, TX.

Teaching Tip #3: I cut the tops off 2 liter pop bottles and use them as
inexpensive funnels for my middle school science class.
No name, workshop participant Miami, FL

Send your favorite teaching tip to: kathie@brains.org

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SECTION TWO: Hot Topics
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HOT TOPIC #1. The educational television program, "Between the
Lions" is designed to improve the literacy skills of young children.
A group of researchers found that in fact, the show does help the emerging
literacy skills for at-risk kindergarten children. Those at-risk kindergartners
who viewed the program had a great increase in literacy skills than those
who did not view the program. The show had no effect on first graders.
Linebarger, D. et al. (2004). Journal of Educational Psychology,
Vol 96(2), 297-308.

HOT TOPIC #2: A more recent study, related to the one above comes from Harvard.
Researchers there had bilingual Spanish/ English kindergarten students watch
either "Between the Lions" or "Arthur" periodically throughout the school year.
Their finding show that actually "Arthur" was a better aide for the development
of English skills than "Between the Lions" for these bilingual kindergartners.
Uchikoshi, Y. (2005). Developmental Psychology, Vol 41(3), 464-478.

HOT TOPIC #3: Are television and video games to blame for bad dreams and
nightmares in children and teens? Not according to a large study in Belgium
involving over 2500 adolescents. They found that while 33% of adolescents
have nightmares involving things they saw on television, 60% of them reported
pleasant dreams involving television programs. Video games were associated
with nightmares in some teens, but more the majority associate pleasant
dreams with video games.
Van den Buick, J. (2004). Dreaming, Vol 14(1), 43-49.

More Hot Topics at the websites!

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SECTION THREE: What's new at the Websites
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**** New Layered Curriculum Units

Mark Sailer in Royal Center, Indiana sent us 3 new units he's
designed and used in his 7th grade classroom: Rocks, Atomic Structure
and The Environment & Interactions of Living Things. Thanks
Mark!

**** BRAINS.org Shop
Our bookstore is still open through the summer. If you need some
summer reading suggestions, you'll find them at the shop:
http://brains.org/store/

**** Layered Curriculum books and training materials

Layered Curriculum texts and workbooks are always available at a
discount when ordered direct from us. If you are planning to use either
the "Layered Curriculum" book or "A Student's Brain" as a supplemental text
for your fall education course, please note that we offer an additional bulk
discount and terms for college bookstores, resellers and institutions.

The video training kit has become very popular for regional and district
professional development. We can custom fit the kit for any size group
from 25 to 1000. Details and ordering information is at:
http://help4teachers.com/video.htm

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SECTION FOUR: Kathie's Email
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Kathie, I have just a couple of questions that I need to ask you.
In Layered Curriculum 2nd Edition, you say that you limit the number of
assignments you grade to two per day. I am in the process of creating my
first unit using your method and doing daily activities. I have four or five for the
students to choose from each day, there are a posible 100 points, so they
will need to earn a min. of 20 points per day. So how do I manage this challenge?

Would you please give me more details on how you keep all the students
assignments during the year in your classroom. I teach World Geography to
9th graders and this year I will have 6 classes with more than 30 students
each. I have choosen to use Layered Curriculum beginning the first of the
year in all my classes and I am trying to visulize the process.
Thank you so much. Barclay F., Splendora High School, TX.

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Barclay,

You're right in that the easiest way to start the year with Layered
Curriculum is with a daily method. Let me see if I can give you a real
easy way to begin if you're doing a 100 point unit and it sounds like
you want it to run for 5 days. (though you mention you have 6 class
periods which suggests you are on a traditional schedule and you may
want to consider running your unit for 10 days, but that's your call).

Day one: Everyone works on C layer activity. Offer a whole class
assignment (like a lecture) and make it worth 5 - 10 points. Then students
choose one of your four activities to complete, each worth 10 - 15 points. They
turn them in at the end of the class period or do it for homework.

Day two: Repeat day one on a new topic, but while the students work,
you can go around and visit with 6 students about yesterday's assignment.

Day three: repeat day one on a new topic, but while the students work,
you can go around and visit with another 6 students about yesterday's assignment.

Day four: everyone works on a B layer activity together ( you can add a
little choice within the assignment if that works for you). Today you go around
and visit with 6 more students on a C layer assignment.

Day five: everyone works on an A layer issue together (though they write
individual opinion papers) You go around and visit with another 6 students
on a C layer assignment.

Day one of the NEXT unit: you can visit with your last 6 students about
C layer assignments from last week.

NOTE: As you can see, this will require you to grade some assignments the
"old-fashioned way" - take them home. But you can change this as you and the
students get better at oral defense - have them choose one assignment, or you can
talk to more of them each day to get 2 assignments done this way. If in fact you
are on a 46- 55 minute period schedule, it is unlikely you will ever get to visit with
each child about every assignment if you are having them do 5 assignments a week.
I would strongly suggest you double the length of the time you give for the unit, make it a
2 week unit, so that you have 2 days for each of the above activities. If you lecture every
other day, you'll find you have plenty of time to get to each of the students on your "off"
day. Good luck. I hope that helps.
Kathie

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SECTION FIVE: Workshops/calendar schedule/misc
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Happy Summer to all of you still connected via email.

This is my month for R & R. I'm writing you today from my mountain cabin
in western New York. It's dawn and the fog is starting to lift from the pond
as the sun crests the top of the pine and hickory. The frogs are singing
a beautiful song right now interrupted periodically by the obnoxious but funny
crows with their "Caw, Caw." I'm having 10 days here of absolute peace
and quiet and loving every minute.

Earlier this month we finished the copy editing of my new book "Differentiating
the High School Classroom" which is still scheduled for release late this year.
I will start taking pre-orders for that at the website in early fall, but Corwin
Press is currently taking pre-orders if you need a bulk order.

I'm going to make a quick trip to Columbus Ohio this Monday to speak
at the midwest Differentiated Instruction conference and I look forward to
meeting many of you there. I'll be doing a morning and an afternoon session
as well as a lunch time book signing at the conference bookstore.

August will bring a flurry of workshops and presentations around North
America. I look forward to my trips to North and South Dakota, Pennsylvania
and New York. Remember that we also now have regional trainers able to
work with individual schools for Layered Curriculum training and follow-up
support. Please contact me if you need any help scheduling a workshop
for your school.

I know the "back-to-school" commercials have already started, but let's try to
remain focused on our off-time for another week or two. There's still plenty of
time for us to work before the new year rings its first bell.

Enjoy the day.

Kathie
=================================================

> Dr. Kathie F. Nunley
> http://help4teachers.com
> http://brains.org
> Layered Curriculum (tm) - because every student deserves a special education (tm)
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Workshop information is available at the website
> http://help4teachers.com/workshops.htm
> or
> call: 603-249-9521
> email: kathie@brains.org
> Brains.org and Help4Teachers is located at:
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- posted by Kathie @ 9:44 PM