Kathie Nunley's Educator's Newsletter
---Mid-April Edition--- (current subscribers: 17,004)
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News and updates to http://brains.org and Kathie Nunley's
Layered Curriculum (tm) Site for Educators: http://help4teachers.com

~~The NO-MEMBERSHIP-REQUIRED website ~~

Complimentary newsletter subscription available at:
http://help4teachers.com/newsletter.htm
Unsubscribe & email change information link at the bottom of this newsletter
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SECTION ONE: Teaching Tips -
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Teacher Tip # 1: At the beginning of the year, students come in and say
to me, "What are we doing today?". I know I'm on the right track, when
they start coming in a bit later in the year and say to their classmate,
"What are we doing today?" Doug Harman, Upper Canada District
School Board.

Teacher Tip #2: Absent student work: I have a hanging file with each child's
name. When the child is absent I put the work they missed in the folder.
It is now all there when the student comes back. Misty Koeppen, Kuna, ID.

Teacher Tip #3: Every Friday is an oral/written spelling test day for us here
at West Side,Greers Ferry, AR. I call the words and the students write them.
I use a tape recorder and record the words so that the student(s) who are
absent are able to take the test on Monday hearing my voice. It also
saves time, as they can take this test unaided. This has worked well for all
grade levels. - Linda Fulmer

Send your favorite teaching tip to me at Kathie@brains.org
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SECTION TWO: Hot Topics
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HOT TOPIC #1: Hofstra University conducted a study where they asked
250 principals of secondary schools to rate their views on the causes of
ineffective teachers. Half the principals were from high performing schools
and half from low performing schools. Interestingly both groups of principals
identified pedagogical issues over content knowledge issues. Their top
3 culprits: classroom-management skills, lesson-implementation skills
and rapport with students. The least problematic issue they found to cause
teacher ineffectiveness: content knowledge! This certainly contradicts many
political agendas nationwide. Torff, B. & Sessions, D. (2005). Journal of
Educational Psychology, Vol 97(4), 530-537.

HOT TOPIC #2: Most of us have seen prenatal pictures of a fetus sucking
its thumb. If the fetus is sucking his or her right thumb, he or she is most
certainly going to be right handed. If the fetus is sucking the left thumb,
there's about a 66 % chance they will be left handed. So handedness appears
determined before birth - especially for right handers.
Hepper, P. et al. (2005). Neuropsychologia, vol 43(3), 313-315.

HOT TOPIC #3: Hearing one's own name in everyday situation is an attention
grabber as it causes a sudden rise in our self-awareness. Researchers used
PET scans to see what happens in the brain when we hear our first name. They
found a significant cerebral blood flow change in the right superior temporal
sulcus and an even stronger change in the medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that
this region plays a big role in our processing of "self". Perrin, F. et al. (2005).
Neuropsychologia, Vol 43(1), 12-19.

More Hot Topics at the websites!

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SECTION THREE:
Website updates
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***NEW at the Help4Teachers.com****:

NEW LAYERED CURRICULUM UNITS
(note: I was late in sending these to the webmaster so be patient a
couple of days please!!)
~~ Tuck Everlasting sent in by Julie King, UT
~~ Biomes & Matter - 5th grade sent in by Judy Murray, TX
~~ High School Social Studies - how & why to Layered Curriculum
sent in by Pam Martin, TX.
You can view these and all our LC sample units at:
http://help4teachers.com/samples.htm

Layered Curriculum text, workbook and video training materials
can be found at: http://help4teachers.com/books.htm

*** NEW article on Accountability and our Grading System, "If
We Must Use Grades, Let's Make Them Reliable" which you can read at:
http://help4teachers.com/reliablegrades.htm

***NEW at the Brains.org SHOP: ***
SPRING SALE:
We've got a special on 3 new titles at the shop:
~~"All the Math You'll Ever Need" - Slavin's survival guide to Math.
~~"Blink" - Gladwell writes a fascinating book on cognition.
~~"On Intelligence" - A Jeff Hawkins book that was highly recommended to
me recently by my colleague Robert Sylwester. A great read!
http://brains.org/store/index.htm

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SECTION FOUR: Kathie's Email
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Kathie - I have searched your site to find the answer to this question.
My school has to use the computer grading program called "Making the Grade".
I would like to integrate Layered Curriculum into my 7th grade science
classes but I am at a loss for how to do it with the school's need for
constant updating of grades? They would like us to have our grades
on the computer and updated regularly for parents and students to be
able to check from home. How do you manage the actual grades? I know
about the points thing and checking the kids, but when you actually have to
make out a grade report for parent or counselor, how do you manage it
with all the various possibilities for grading? Suggestions please?
Many thanks. Rhonda H.

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Hi Rhonda,
I do get lots of questions on the logistics of grading and actually
dedicated a chapter to it in my new book on Differentiating Instruction
for High School. Let me try to briefly address it for you here. There are
several ways to handle grading:
1. Enter grades by Units (simplest)
Yellow unit: X number of points out of 100.
Blue unit: X number of points out of 100. etc.

2. Enter grades by Layers
Yellow Unit C layer: X number of points out of 70

3. Enter grades by objective
Vocabulary assignment: X number of points out of 10
(note for this you do not need to list which of the vocabulary assignments
someone did, just the points for that objective).

4. If you need weekly grades you can subdivide your unit accordingly
and enter as that. For example a 2 week unit of 100 points is entered
as 50 points per week.

5. If you need daily grades, require an assignment per day, and
enter it as such.

You actually can work around any grade program. Keep the hard copies
of the unit sheets for parent-teacher conferences as those come in real
handy. I know that's a quick overview, but I hope it helps some. -Kathie

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SECTION FIVE: Workshops/calendar schedule/misc
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Welcome back to those of you returning now from spring break. Some of
you may just be beginning your break too. I hope wherever you are the
flowers are blooming before you and the sun is warm on your face.

I'm heading to warm Nevada this week where I hope to enjoy plenty of
sunshine and warm hospitality as always from the Clark County School
District teachers. Then it's back to western New York for a couple of
days with the Cattauragus - Allegany BOCES in Salamanca, New York.

If you're looking for a great summer conference on differentiated instruction
I hope you join us in Virginia Beach June 18 - 20th for the "Differentiation
and the Brain-Friendly Classroom" Conference. You can register at:
http://www.corwinpressconferences.com/2006_Corwin_Workshops.pdf

New Layered Curriculum presentations are in the making for locations in
Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina. My calendar is updated
when details are confirmed: http://help4teachers.com/calendar.htm

As always, my best to you and yours,

Kathie
=================================================
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> email: kathie@brains.org
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Dr Kathie F Nunley
http://help4teachers.com
http://brains.org
Layered Curriculum. . . because every child deserves a special education. (tm)
Brains.org SHOP
54 Ponemah Rd
Amherst NH 03031
fax: 208-979-0678
ph: 603-249-9521
- posted by Kathie @ 9:26 PM