Show #104- Dr. Susan Johnson, Commonwealth Academy- Remediation and the Future of Education
In the third part of my conversation with Dr. Susan Johnson, head of Commonwealth Academy, we talk about the difference between teaching a child with accommodations versus remediating weaker skills and how to accomplish both; we also discuss what she would recommend as suggestions of how to change education.
Ultimately, I think we have to look at education as an important part of raising an educated public, and as a vital part of our national infrastructure. We have to decide if education is important, and if so, then we have to make the changes necessary to do it well. But the one thing we will never be able to get rid of is the importance of students feeling mentored and cared about on a personal level by their teachers. If we want this to happen, we have to be prepared to help create smaller and more intimate classrooms, where students and teachers get to know each other- because without this, education can be little more than an assembly lime disguised as a school.
I hope you enjoy today’s show, and we’ll be back to you next week!
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Show #100 Sharon Martin, SLP on Response to Intervention (RTI) and Individualized Education Programs (IEP).
In today’s show, Sharon and I discuss how you might go about getting help for your child in school. Part of this is understanding the first steps, called Response to Intervention, or RTI. Teachers are supposed to try different, research-based interventions with the child in the classroom, to see if the child improves, before referring the child for possible testing and evaluation for special education services, that might require developing a special education program, commonly called an Individualized Education Plan or Program (IEP).
As part of this show, I have put together a list of common modifications and accommodations that are typically made for kids in the classroom- think of this as a “menu” of sorts of possible, but not exclusive, changes that can be made to help your child. You can find this list and links to other resources under the link “Accommodations Guide”.
We have our big holiday book give away coming- and I hope you will are participate! Here are the rules:
1. The give away closes December 15, 2008.
2. We’ll have a link at the top of our website for you to enter the drawing-you’ll need to answer two questions and information so we can mail out the book to you. The only condition is that you let us know when it arrives! We’d love it if you’d leave us a review in iTunes as well, but that’s optional, of course!
We’ll have copies of Marcus Buckingham’s latest book, The Truth about You, a few audio books, books by Mel Levine, Rick LaVoie, Edward Hallowell, and more!
Thank you so much, each and everyone of you, for making this one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.
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LD Podcast #95- Dr. Andy Van Schaack- Technology and Education
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Andy Van Schaack from Vanderbilt University about Education and Instructive Technology. We spoke specifically about what technology can and cannot do to aid education and learning. We spoke about how it’s even more important to go beyond just research-based learning and look at evidence-based instruction, working with what we know about psychology and brain function to maximize learning in the classroom and beyond.
Technology tends to work best when it amplifies human capabilities, but real learning involves being able to take new information and apply it in novel situations.The tests we’re often given in school tends to value cramming versus encoding information for long term retrieval and use, so teachers and students alike have to be on the look out for testing that requires recall of information, or merely recognizing the appropriate answer.
The core issue here is the following: The best learning occurs when there are more opportunities to respond with feedback. Teachers are invaluable to provide feedback to students, but we have to find a way to do this is a positively reinforcing way that mentors students as they seek mastery of subjects and material.
Dr. Van Schaack is the educational advisor for LiveScribe, which has developed a new computing platform- the Pulse pen- a computer in a pen. The pen uses special paper that comes in an ordinary spiral notebook; it records fairly high fidelity audio that syncs up perfectly with the words written on the page. The audio and “picture” of the written notes are then transferred to your PC as a PDF file, where you can listen to the lecture and see the notes being wirtten at the same time. This means you can jump to the exact place in a lecture where a teacher talks about what’s going on the mid-term, for example, without having to listen to the whole lecture again. If students also use the Cornell Notetaking system, they can end up with better and more effective notes than ever before, making learning easier, especially in complex subjects. Not only that, the notes are searchable for key terms, so you can go exactly to the spot you need in a notebook to look up a particular piece of information as needed.
I purchased one of these for my boys, hoping it will help us teach them how to take more effective notes in class, and I have to say that the kids have actually been debating over who gets to take the pen to school with them each day. I’m afraid I’m going to have to buy another one, shortly! I’ve used it for a community meeting I attended and blogged about for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and was very pleased with the results.
The first part of our interview focuses on using technology in education and what it can and cannot accomplish; the second half, which will be released by the end of this week, will discuss the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen in more detail, including what kind of mental load notetaking has on the brain, how fast we can process information, the research data about why we take notes in the first place, and how we should be using them, and we talk about how capturing information is fundamentally useless without access.
Links to things discussed on this episode:
*Listener feedback
*Check out Ken Robinson’s presentation at TED in 2006. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started back in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader, and I always learn a ton from the talks there- some of the best material available on the web;
The Obviousness of Social and Educational Research Results- NL Gage
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| Frontline Report- Kids Growing Up Online * BBC News: Basic Sums Stress 1.3Million Adults Cornell Note Taking technique-
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