Kathie Nunley's Educator's Newsletter
Monday, July 16, 2012
Dr Kathie Nunley's Educator's Newsletter
---Mid-Summer 2012 Edition--- (current subscribers: 14,720)
Unsubscribe and address change information links at the bottom
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News and updates to Kathie Nunley's Layered Curriculum® Sites for Educators:
http://Help4Teachers.comhttp://brains.org~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--------SECTION ONE: TEACHING TIPS
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TEACHER TIP #1: Attach an empty box of tissues to the full one as a
rubbish bin. It minimized dirty tissues around your room!
Jessica Steele, Elsen Academy, South Africa.
TEACHER TIP # 2: Children are never empty vessels when they come
to school. Always let them brainstorm regarding the topic you want them
to learn about. Start from the known to the unknown.
Welsh Oata - Get Ahead College, Queenstown, SA
Send your favorite teaching tip to me at Kathie@brains.org
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------SECTION TWO: HOT TOPICS in Neuro & Educational Psychology-----
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HOT TOPIC # 1: More support for getting children up and moving in
current study out this month. Preadolescent children who engaged
in more sedentary behavior and had lower cardio-respiratory fitness,
scored lower on cognitive tests. They showed less cognitive control,
more errors of omission and lower response accuracy. Children with
higher aerobic fitness do better with cognitive tasks.
Pontifex, M. et al. (2012, July). "Fit and vigilant: The relationship between
poorer aerobic fitness and failures in sustained attention during
preadolescence." Neuropsychology, Vol 26(4), 407-413.
HOT TOPIC #2: Playing board games, which involve linear numbers,
in the classroom can help preschool children with number line estimation,
magnitude comparison and counting.
Ramani, G.; Siegler, R,; & Hitti, A. (2012, June 18) "Taking it to the
Classroom: Number Board Games as a Small group Learning Activity."
Journal of Educational Psychology, preview, nps.
More Hot Topics at the website: http://brains.org and at :
http://help4teachers.com/
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---SECTION THREE: WEBSITE UPDATES
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There are now three ways for you to easily stay up on current research
news between newsletters:
Subscribe to my Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/
Check updates on the Brains.org homepage
Check posting on Help4Teachers current research page:
http://help4teachers.com/
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------SECTION FOUR: KATHIE'S EMAIL
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From the Layered Curriculum FACEBOOK page:
Kathie,
I first came across LC about 3 years ago when I was working on my final
Master's project. I loved the LC for an entire year (still do), but moved away
from it because I was having a grading issue in my own brain - I'm hoping
you can shed some light on it....
I have traditionally split my grade book into categories (30% tests, 20%
homework, 40% classwork/unit work, 10% ....). When I did my units in the
past, I had kids stop doing the A-layer because they found out they could
get an "A" in my class, if their test grades were high enough. At the end of
the school year I had my 8th graders do a unit page, but I changed a
category to be "A-layer" and made it worth 5% of their overall grade -
I heard some grumbles but it also forced those kids who wanted an A to
actually do the "A-layer" and those that got a bit lazy ended with a "B".
How do you suggest I work "layers" into my category grading system?
- Lori S.
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Lori,
Personally, I like to wrap everything into the 3 Layers. So, I think this all comes
down to what your tests cover. Do your tests cover material from all 3 layers
or just the C or some combination? If the test is only covering C layer material,
why not make the test part of the C layer. (X # of points out of the C layer
possible points). If the Test covers C, B, and A layer, then you could designate
those portions of the test and have them also be a part of the unit score.
Otherwise, you may just have to play with the point system. Keep in mind, the
purpose of the grading in Layered Curriculum® is to make sure students are
doing some kind of higher level thinking in order to get an A. So you could just
require a certain mastery of A layer work to earn an A. - Kathie
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------SECTION FIVE: WORKSHOPS / SCHEDULE / MISC CHAT------
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Happy mid summer to those in the northern hemisphere and happy mid winter
to those in the southern hemisphere.
What a fantastic summer I've had thus far. I spent 3 weeks in June traveling
throughout southern Africa. We had a wonderful conference in Windhoek,
Namibia with the Autism Network of Namibia. From there I spent a day at
the Herzlia schools in Cape Town with 300+ teachers from the Cape Town
area. Thank you Herzlia for hosting the day and allowing so many others to
attend.
After Cape Town, I flew to Gaborone, Bostwana for the Support 4 Learning
conference. Another fantastic day of Layered Curriculum® with teachers
primarily from the independent schools in Botswana.
I then had 2 days in Johannesburg. One at St. Stithians College with their entire
secondary staff and another day with SAALED, the Southern African Association
for Learning and Educational Differences. And finally, I wrapped up the tour in
Grahamstown, South Africa at Rhodes University for a full day Layered Curriculum®
conference hosted by St Andrews and the Diocesan School for Girls. We had
400 teachers from the eastern cape, both independent and government schools.
Thank you, thank you to all who attended and for all those who spent countess hours
getting these conference organized. I cannot wait to return!
But my summer travel is not over yet. Next Monday I'll be at the University of Florida in
Gainesville for a full day of Layered Curriculum®. That workshop is open to
outside participants (registration link on the site at: http://help4teachers.com/
And August takes to me Orlando for this year's American Psychological Association's
annual national conference. I'll update you on the research from there.
If you are interested in having your school or location host a Layered Curriculum®
workshop during this upcoming school year, just send me an email.
Enjoy the remainder of the summer / winter holiday.
As always, my best to you and yours,
Kathie
Dr Kathie F Nunley
Layered Curriculum® . . . because every child deserves a special education (tm)
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