Since many Seattle science teachers also teach math, the following may be of interest.
From Terry Bergeson, Superintendent of Public Instruction:
Dear Friends of K-12 Mathematics Education:
As you may be aware, the Charles A. Dana Center for Mathematics and Science Education affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin has been selected to assist the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to lead the K-12 mathematics standards revision process in response to the State Board of Education’s independent review of the K-12 mathematics standards. The result will be a set of K-12 mathematics standards defined by revised Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs) and accompanying Grade-Level Expectations (GLEs) that embody the mathematics required for success in the 21st-century society and economy.
In particular, the revised standards will build on the acknowledged strengths of Washington’s current EALRs and GLEs as identified in the State Board of Education’s Review and Recommendation Report while setting higher expectations for Washington students by:
- Restoring the balance of process and content at the elementary
levels
- Fortifying mathematics content and increasing its rigor
- Identifying areas of emphasis at each grade level (for example providing more guidance about the specific performance levels of computational fluency and use of algorithms)
- Increasing the clarity and usability of the standards for both educators and the public
OSPI is required to present the revised standards to the State Legislature by January 31, 2008. Committees have been established in accordance with the project plan and timeline within the Dana Center contract. The committees will include a Project Management Team, a Standards Revision Team (SRT), an Articulation Team, and Editorial Teams. The chart below describes the role of each committee, the timeline for work, and the participants. Participation on the SRT was determined as a result of a competitive application process in late September. Applications were distributed to a variety of stakeholder groups across Washington including mathematicians, mathematics educators, teachers, curriculum experts, and business/community leaders.
Applications were reviewed and scored based on a rubric that evaluated the applicants’ relevant mathematics experience and knowledge; awards and recognition; and their response to the narrative question: “Identify how standards can improve mathematics education.” 157 applications were received to fill available positions.
The revision process will offer many opportunities for public comment.
The project web site will be created and maintained by the Dana Center; we expect this site to be available in early November as a link from the OSPI homepage. (edit: The site is available now at this address –JB). The web site will contain materials from SRT meetings, the most current version of the revised standards, and a system for providing email comment. Beginning in late November, focus groups will be held with key stakeholder groups both separately and in conjunction with existing meetings and conferences.
Please refer to the attached chart for more detail regarding the different committees that will contribute to and lead the standards revision process in the coming months. Please note that we will have additional background information on the committee members posted to the project web site in the coming weeks. Our timeline is daunting, but the tremendously talented and diverse mathematics revision team are up to the task.
The coming months are sure to bring exciting opportunities as we revise our K-12 mathematics standards. I sincerely appreciate your support and interest in this process and I look forward to keeping you updated and involved as we proceed.
Sincerely,
Terry Bergeson
You can view the draft standards here
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT & HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE
SUMMER INSTITUTE IN LIFE SCIENCES for K-8 teachers
JUNE 28 – JULY 20, 2007
The Summer Institute in Life Science (SILS) is a 3-4 week hands-on program for teaching K-8 teachers how to bring investigative science into their classrooms. Teachers from schools serving predominantly low income, and disadvantaged student populations are given preference. All instructional costs are covered by the program. Teachers will receive 7 credits BIOL 491.
SILS participants are introduced to open-ended inquiries, learn to ask testable questions, design experiments, explore content-rich topics (such as environmental connections, biodiversity, human body systems etc.), prepare a research poster as a teaching tool, and develop an inquiry curriculum unit to teach during the following school year.
The SILS program provides a site visit to each school during the school year and a one-day follow-up workshop during Winter Quarter. It also supports an e-mail chat group for alumni to troubleshoot teaching queries.
Apply on-line at:
http://protist.biology.washington.edu/teachers/Sils/SILSapp.tpl
or contact:
Helen Buttemer, Program Director, helenb@u.washington.edu
Applications due March 27, 2007
While NSTA declined to send its members 50,000 donated copies of Al Gore’s film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, you can request a free copy here.
The first 50,000 teachers who apply are eligible to win. There is a limit of one DVD per teacher. All entries must be received by January 18, 2007
You’ll need your school’s tax ID number to enter; see your school secretary to get this number.
Via the WSTA listserv:
Nov. 7, 2006
BELLINGHAM - A group of education leaders from across Washington State, led by the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership at Western Washington University, has developed and released a web-based resource to help teachers use science notebooks to improve student achievement in both writing and science.
The new Web resource was introduced at the combined Oct. 13 joint conference of the Washington Science Teachers Organization (WSTA) and the Washington Organization for Reading Development (WORD).
The Science Notebooks Web site can be found at www.sciencenotebooks.org.
Every teacher struggles to use the limited hours in the school day to teach all core subject areas well. But there are strategies that can get more out of each of those hours, helping students learn more in multiple subjects. The use of science notebooks, a relatively new practice, is one such strategy.
Science notebooks are a place where students hone their writing skills to formulate and refine questions, make predictions, record data, describe procedures, compose reflections and communicate results. Most importantly, notebooks provide a place for students to chronicle new concepts they have learned.
When students are encouraged to describe their understanding of concepts through writing in science notebooks, these notebooks become an effective strategy to help students learn science. Research has shown that such writing also strengthens students’ language skills.
The use of science notebooks in classrooms across the country has grown steadily in recent years, yet few resources are available to support teachers in using this important teaching practice well.
“This new resource provides teachers with everything they need to see ways to connect their science and writing instruction. Being web-based means that teachers across the state can access the resource at a time and place convenient for them,” said Dennis Schatz, vice president for Education at the Pacific Science Center and co-director of Washington State LASER, a statewide science education reform group.
By reviewing hundreds of actual student notebooks, the group of education leaders explored how teachers were asking students to record their ideas in their science notebooks. Analysis of the student work revealed eight distinct strategies or “entry types,” each used with a specific purpose in mind. The Web site was constructed to describe these entry types and illustrates each with multiple samples of student work stored in a searchable online database. The samples come from students of all grade levels, demographic groups, and geographic regions.
“Teachers are looking at the samples of student work on the Web site to better understand what students at their grade level are capable of producing. When they show those samples of student work to their own students it increases their motivation and improves the quality of their work,” said Peggy Willcuts, Elementary Science coordinator for the Walla Walla Public schools and science specialist for Batelle/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The site also includes classroom lessons, research citations, and frequently asked questions about science notebooks to provide teachers a robust resource. In almost every section teachers can submit new samples of student work, assessment tools, writing templates, or other resources so that the site can grow and evolve based on the needs and interests of its users.
The Science Notebooks Web site was developed through the work of the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership, a five-year National Science Foundation funded project led by Western Washington University, that is focused on improving the teaching and learning of science at all levels.
The partnership consists of all of the school districts in Whatcom and Skagit counties, plus 13 districts on the Olympic Peninsula, Western Washington University, the Northwest Indian College, Whatcom Community College, Skagit Valley College, Everett Community College, ESD 114, ESD 189, and Washington State LASER.
Carolyn Puelz
Office of University Communications
WWU, OM 300, MS 9011
Bellingham, WA 98225-9011
Tel: (360) 650-3350
Fax: (360) 650-6817
E-mail: carolyn.puelz[at]wwu.edu
For those of you doing OEL, or those of you who just need a quick and easy lesson plan for a substitute teacher, we are working on developing a bank of lessons that can stand alone or be incorporated with one of the modules. Here are our first two offerings (as always, feedback is encouraged!):
The Practice Activity.doc Tower Building Activity.doc
