There is a growing philosophy that every teacher is a literacy teacher, a view that is becoming increasingly important as states prepare for the Common Core State Standards, which place an emphasis on content literacy.
But what does “every teacher is a literacy teacher” actually mean? Will science teachers be expected to put away the Bunsen burners and take out the Balzac? Will social studies teachers be responsible for teaching contractions alongside the Constitution? If we misunderstand the idea, we may misapply it, and it may even lead to resentment among teachers who feel they are being asked to take on another’s responsibility.
Part of the confusion may stem from the tendency to refer to the English Language Arts (ELA) class as Literacy class. I’ve done it myself. After all, that is the class where students ultimately learn how to read and write. But as we continue to examine the demands of college and the workplace, we are discovering the need to expand our understanding of literacy as a set of...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, March 8, 2012 - 4:57pm
Teacher effectiveness is a hot topic these days, but lately the conversation and investment has focused on teacher evaluation. While measuring teachers’ effectiveness is a significant first step, more important will be to use this information effectively and strategically to develop, retain and reward effective teachers.
There is no question that teaching matters. Accordingly, this year’s $15,000 Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize will highlight innovations in the area of teacher capacity-building and effectiveness. Teaching Matters is seeking nominations to highlight replicable, school-based strategies that education leaders implement in this area.
Teaching Matters urges you to nominate a school principal whose leadership results in an academically rigorous and innovative learning environment. This year’s submissions will be accepted from all publicly-funded K-12 schools in the New York metropolitan area (within a 100 mile radius of New York City). The application and criteria for the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize are available here. Teachers, parents, principals and...
Lynette GuastaferroWednesday, February 29, 2012 - 4:29pm
Teaching Matters is now accepting nominations for the 2012 Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters.
Rohatyn Prize nominations will be accepted between March 1, 2012 and March 15, 2012. Click here to nominate yourself or an innovative principal you know. Nominated principals, who meet the basic criteria, will receive a link to the complete application via email. Final applications will be accepted between March 15, 2012 and April 15, 2012.
Our panel of judges will review the applications and select ten finalists for The Second Annual Rohatyn Prize for Schools Where Teaching Matters. In late spring, we'll announce the Top Ten and open up online voting to the public.
The winner of The Second Annual Rohatyn Prize will receive a one-time award of $15,000 to support, sustain or further an innovative school learning environment, program or practice that has the potential to be replicated by other schools.
There are often revelatory moments in the data inquiry process, where your analysis will lead to great insight and discovery in a way that challenges your assumptions and changes the way you think about teaching and learning in your school. There are other times when the data shows exactly what you were expecting, confirming your predictions and giving you valuable evidence in making your case to others. Many times, however, the data doesn’t show anything at all.
This can be somewhat dispiriting to an enthusiastic data team, but it doesn’t need to be. Sometimes the data may show nothing, but that’s still valuable information that puts you ahead of where you were before you looked. We don’t complain when our dentist finds no cavities, when the mechanic finds nothing wrong with our car, or when a medical test comes back negative. Similarly, in data inquiry, even a finding of nothing can really be something, if you know how to interpret what it means.
Lynette GuastaferroWednesday, October 19, 2011 - 11:32pm
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Linda Darling-Hammond. She is being honored by Teaching Matters as our 2011 Champion of Education and Innovation. Below is an abridged transcript of our conversation on key issues in today's education landscape -- Common Core, Assessment, Teacher Quality and America's commitment to real education reform.
Guastaferro: In a recent speech, you mention several high performing school systems in other countries organizing their curriculum around problem solving and critical thinking skills. Would you say the US is moving in that direction with the adoption of Common Core standards?
Darling-Hammond: I think that there is certainly a lot of good language in the common core about good critical thinking skills and problem solving and so on, but the end result is going to depend on many other factors. It's going to depend on what we do around building curriculum materials, it depends on whether we transform assessments in very important ways. It depends on what we do about professional development for teachers and for school leaders, because you can implement the common core curriculum in a way that is much more focused on higher order learning skills or you can implement the common core in a way that just replicates a lot of the more...
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, September 19, 2011 - 10:41am
On Tuesday, October 18, 2011, Teaching Matters will honor Linda Darling-Hammond as a Champion of Education and Innovation at our annual Champions of Education and Innovation celebration. Linda Darling-Hammond is an authority on school reform, educational equity and teacher quality. In 2007, Education Week named her one of the 10 most influential people in the field of education over the last decade. David Pogue, Emmy award winner and New York Times technology writer, will deliver the keynote address. The event will take place at noon at the Harvard Club in New...
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, August 8, 2011 - 5:39pm
“The challenge confronting public education is not recruiting more good people to an ineffective system, but rather creating powerful systems that allow ordinary people to achieve success.” -Richard Dufour and Robert J. Marzano
In almost all professions, except education, it is understood that group collaboration is the fastest way to excellence and innovation. In the medical field, research indicates patients perceive a higher quality of care in group versus solo practice. Trends in scientific research also point toward the benefits of teamwork. Thomas M. Koulopoulos, author of The Innovation Zone: How Great Companies Re-Innovate for Amazing Success, looked at Nobel prize recipients in the physical sciences and found that “[i]n the first fifty years of the twentieth century, thirty-nine Nobel prizes were awarded to individuals and four to teams. In the second fifty years, thirty-three were awarded to individuals as opposed to thirty-six for teams.” The problems of our day are more complex and group work toward a common goal is becoming a necessary factor for success...
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, August 1, 2011 - 4:45pm
As of July 2011, 43 states have opted to implement the Common Core State Standards--the national educational standards intended to raise the bar on student achievement nationwide. Much has been made of what these standards will mean for students, but what about teachers? What new proficiencies might teachers need to create tasks that meet the new standards and assessments that accurately gauge whether students have succeeded in the mastery of higher order skills? It's easy to know whether a student has correctly identified parts of a speech. Comparatively speaking, it's more difficult to identify whether a student has sufficiently demonstrated knowledge of synthesis. How will teachers come to a common understanding of what is needed to assess these higher order skills? And what kinds of structures can leaders put in place to ensure their teaching staff is prepared to meet the challenge of the Common Core?
While schools are not expected to fully implement the standards until 2014, school leaders know that experimenting early and often will ease the instructional transition. During the 2010-2011 school year, 100 New York City Schools participated in a Common Core pilot program...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, July 14, 2011 - 8:21pm
Teaching Matters’ work was recently featured in a WNYC News report about academic gains being made by students at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School. Over 90 percent of Juniors passed this year’s English and US History Regents exams, with comparable gains seen among Sophomores who took the Science Regents. Teaching Matters has worked in partnership with Chelsea High School for three years to help build a school culture of professional learning, planning and collaboration.
During the 2010-2011 school year, Senior Educational Consultants Jelbin DeLaCruz and Judith LeFevre worked with 18 teachers across grade levels and subject areas, with a specific focus on improving student writing outcomes. DeLaCruz and LeFevre supported staff in the creation of grade specific writing prompts and rubrics, aligning the curriculum to the school’s instructional priorities. Using Writing Matters as a model, the school administered a baseline writing assessment to identify deficiencies and strengths among the student population. Throughout the year, teams came together to check-in on student progress and revise instructional resources as needed. According to DeLaCruz, “When we administered the end-of-year...
Lynette GuastaferroWednesday, August 3, 2011 - 2:32pm
NEW YORK, July 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/-- Teaching Matters is pleased to announce that Jeanne Rotunda, Principal of West Side Collaborative (MS 250) is the recipient of the first annual Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation. The $15,000 prize was presented to Rotunda by Elizabeth Rohatyn at Teaching Matters Fourth Annual Summer Forum for Principals. West Side Collaborative's online collaborative community fosters the staff's ability to differentiate instruction for students, share resources and lessons and strategically use assessments. Rotunda plans to use the award to build teacher effectiveness through the expansion of the school's online system.
The goal of the Rohatyn Prize is to recognize a school leader who has launched innovative practices in his or her school and to provide funding to support efforts to expand those practices. Before presenting the prize, Elizabeth Rohatyn addressed the crowd of over 100 principals and school leaders. "When we started Teaching Matters 17 years ago, we did so with a vision of today in mind....
Lynette GuastaferroTuesday, June 28, 2011 - 10:34am
NEW YORK, June 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/--What are the Common Core State Standards and how will this new initiative affect instruction in our schools? In an effort to support school leaders in designing learning environments that produce career and college ready learners, Teaching Matters' Fourth Annual Summer Forum for Principals will feature a discussion about the implications of the Common Core State Standards on curriculum and assessment. Bena Kallick, co-author of Assessment Strategies for Self-Directed Learning, will facilitate an interactive conversation entitled, "Learner at the Core: How Common Core Reshapes our Thinking about Assessment.” The forum will take place on Monday, July 11, 2011 at 475 Riverside Drive at 1:30PM.
Following the talk, the first annual Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation will be awarded to one of the five finalist schools, chosen from a field of over 100 nominations. Elizabeth Rohatyn, a champion of public education in New York City, will be on hand to present the Prize to the principal of the winning school. The recipient of the Rohatyn Prize will receive a one-time award of $15,000 to support, sustain or further an innovative school learning environment, program or practice that promotes academic rigor and has the potential to be replicated by other schools.
by Dr. William L. Heller, Using Data Program Director
Cross-posted on the TERC Using Data blog
Data-savvy investigators never make important decisions based on a single source. When teams following the Using Data process believe they may have found a student learning problem, based on their analysis of standardized testing results, they know to confirm the problem through an examination of student work and other common formative assessments. When they do this, it’s important for them to have a norming process in place to ensure that the data being generated is reliable and useful.
Norming is the process of calibrating the use of a single set of scoring criteria among multiple scorers. If norming is successful, a particular piece of work should receive the same score regardless of who is scoring it. With the advent of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, we may anticipate that curriculum-embedded performance tasks will begin to gain prominence over traditional multiple-choice tests, and it will be even more...
There are only three days left to cast your vote for one of the eleven semi-finalists for the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation.
Click here to see the list of semi-finalists and participate in the voting via Facebook. Voting is open from June 10th to June 17th. The top five schools will move on to the final round. We encourage you and your school community to support your candidate by casting your votes online!
The first recipient of the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize will be announced at the Teaching Matters Annual Principals' Forum on July 11th, 2011.
The first annual Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation, a $15,000 award, will go to a New York metropolitan area public school principal whose leadership results in an academically rigorous and technologically innovative learning environment. The award can be applied to any of the following:
Equipment
Materials
Human resources--including staffing, consultants, release and/or common planning time.
NEW YORK, June 10, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Teaching Matters announces eleven semi-finalists for the first annual Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation -- $15,000 awarded to a school principal to support, sustain or further an innovative or burgeoning school program or practice that has the potential to be replicated by other schools. The eleven semi-finalist schools were chosen from a field of over 100 nominations. The general public will have an opportunity to vote for five finalists from June 10th to June 17, 2011 on the Teaching Matters website. The top five schools will move on to a final round of judging. The recipient of the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize will be announced on July 11, 2011 at the annual Teaching Matters Principals' Forum. Funding is made available by contributors to the Elizabeth Rohatyn Innovation Fund.
The semi-finalists were chosen by an esteemed selection committee including Marilyn Reznick, Executive Director, Educational Leadership, AT&T Public Affairs; Lisa Belzberg, Founder and Executive Chairperson of PENCIL; Bill Tally, Senior Researcher and Designer, Center for Children and Technology; Ron Thorpe, Vice President and Director, Education, WNET/Thirteen and Gideon Boateng, former...
There is an important lesson to be learned from a soccer game played between Barbados and Grenada at the 1994 Shell Caribbean Cup. In this tournament, tied games would go to sudden death overtime, and any subsequent goal scored would be a “Golden Goal” worth two points. Barbados needed to win by two to progress to the next round, and in fact they were ahead 2-0, when Grenada scored.
With just minutes left in the game, a quick-thinking Barbadian player scored on his own goal, tying the game in order to invoke sudden death and buy some time for his team. Grenada’s players then tried to score on their own goal, hoping to lose by one, but Barbados was able to successfully defend Grenada’s goal. The game went into overtime, and Barbados won 4-2.
You would think that it would have taken a great deal to get these players to go against years of training and experience to want to score on their own goals, but all it really took was a momentary change in their...
For a limited time only, citifari will offer a free landmark photo tour to the first 50 individuals that make a donation to Teaching Matters. Don’t miss out on this exclusive opportunity to photograph some of New York’s most unique landmarks. Together with a small group of no more than 10 people, a citifari guide will lead you through a 2-1/2 hour walking tour through several of the city’s most scenic destinations.
Lynette GuastaferroTuesday, May 17, 2011 - 11:56am
NEW YORK, May 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/— Does the death penalty violate the eighth amendment? Is marriage for same-sex couples a civil rights issue? Do gun control laws violate a person's Constitutional right to own a gun? Next week—as part of Teaching Matters' citywide Voices and Choices culminating events—hundreds of middle school students will convene at the Intrepid Air and Space Museum and Pace University to take a stand and voice their opinions on these questions and many more.
The week begins with a Civil Rights Student Summit at Pace University on Monday, May 16 at 9:00AM. Eighth-grade students from middle schools across the city will present Citizen Media Campaigns drawing attention to today's most pressing civil rights issues including environmental injustices, gay marriage and racial profiling. Students will then present their...
How do you get a truly innovative educational product into the hands of classroom teachers? The answer is, "It's not easy." According to Chad Dorsey, President and CEO of the Concord Consortium, in the article "Perspective: Distributing Innovation," the problem is two-fold. The first hurdle is the costly, time-consuming process of research, development and user-testing necessary for producing products teachers can effectively use. Next is the daunting task of product distribution in a competitive landscape where the major distribution channels are dominated by larger publishers. While these challenges have seemed insurmountable, Google's growing EDU Apps Marketplace is poised to dismantle both barriers by providing educators greater choice and easy access to digital tools they can use in the classroom.
In general, platforms such as the Apple App Store, The Android Market and the Google Apps Marketplace have enabled smaller vendors, with cutting-edge products, to reach a wider audience. What differentiates the Google...
Teaching Matters' proposal, "Writing Matters: Improving Online Instruction, Monitoring and Achievement for Urban Students" was one of 40 finalists chosen from a pool of over 200 applicants. Writing Matters maximizes the benefits technology can bring to underserved middle school students in the mastery of writing. The proposed project will enhance the program's technology platform in order to support direct learning and differentiated instruction and to help educators capture and respond to student performance in a more timely fashion.
As a facilitator of the TERC Using Data institute, I try not to play favorites among the different stages of the process. Every link in the chain is important towards improving student outcomes. But I must confess that I always look forward to the item-level analysis with just a little extra bit of enthusiasm. This is where the school-based data teams that I work with are most likely to achieve a breakthrough and gain new understandings about the problems their students are having. Even the teachers who arrive being the most skeptical about the importance of data are subject to “Aha!” moments when they actually look at the questions their students got wrong on the exams and are able to specifically target a cause and a solution.
Item-level analysis is a crucial step when interpreting what test scores mean. New York State provides a performance indicator for each question, but these can often be inaccurate or misleading. Sometimes, students in a particular school may have had trouble with a question for reasons other than lacking the skill described by the performance indicator. Perhaps the Social Studies...
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, April 25, 2011 - 11:28am
by Evan O'Donnell, Director of Technology
“Microsoft Killer” “Who Needs Handhelds?” “Rollin’ on Chrome” - what provocative blog title catches the most attention? The point being, while the Google Chrome Laptop might look like a run-of-the-mill laptop, it is a game changer.
Matte Black, lightweight, thin, web cam, Intel processor - don’t know the speed, don’t know the storage space or ram. None of this matters. There are two major shifts in thinking and usage when it comes to the Google Laptop, and more specifically, the Google Laptop in Education:
1. Hardware as a Service
Principals, what would you pay per student per year for a device that was always online, had access to tons of free software and worked seamlessly with your school’s communication / collaboration and content platform? $300? $400? Remember, you don’t need to pay for support, or bandwidth, or ever worry about having to upgrade technology. Perhaps a better question is what are you...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, March 17, 2011 - 4:55pm
by Jeff Branzburg
Featured in EdWeek's recent article on the NYC Innovation Zone, as well as on the local news channel NY1, East Bronx Academy for the Future is a 6th - 12th grade school located just south of the Bronx Zoo. Teaching Matters, the lead and founding community partner of this New Century School, has worked collaboratively with Sarah Scrogin, the founding school leader, to push the envelope on ways to use technology to enable learning innovation. Now, buoyed by an entirely new level of central support from the NYC Department of Education's Innovation Zone, EBA's focus is to pioneer new models that transform what schools look like, personalizing instruction to the needs of each individual student, and dramatically improving student achievement. Teaching Matters will be hosting an Innovation Field Trip to East Bronx Academy...
Lynette GuastaferroFriday, March 11, 2011 - 10:33am
Something happened recently that not only surprised me, but gave me hope about the potential impact the next generation of assessments will have on our schools. The principal of a school slated for closure reviewed one of Teaching Matters’ project-based civics programs and said to me, “I need this, it will help our kids pass these new tests!” Normally, I’d take his comment as an insult — Our civics program reduced to a test prep tool?! But this particular principal has been involved in a pilot program where teachers are designing performance tasks to assess student learning, in preparation for the adoption of the new Common Core Standards. His school is one of approximately 100 pilot schools that are among the first to address the cultural shift, as schools grapple with what it means to measure student performance beyond the multiple choice test.
In September 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $330 million in grants to help states develop better ways to measure student learning. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “[…] this new generation of state assessments will be an absolute game-changer in public...
Teaching Matters is proud to be a key sponsor of the 2011 TEDxNYED conference. TEDxNYED is an all-day conference focused on empowering innovation in education. The conference will be held on Saturday, March 5, 2011 at The New York Academy of Sciences.
In an effort to increase the presence of urban educators at TEDxNYED, Teaching Matters offered fellowships to 10 New York City educators to participate in what promises to be a engaging and informative event. Attendees will hear from world-renowned educators including Will Richardson (author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms) and Alan November (November Learning).
Rohatyn Prize nominations will be accepted between March 1, 2011 and March 15, 2011. Click here to nominate yourself or an innovative principal you know. Nominated principals, who meet the basic criteria, will receive a link to the complete application via email. Final applications will be accepted between March 15, 2011 and April 15, 2011.
Our panel of judges will review the applications and select ten finalists for the Rohatyn Prize. In late spring, we'll announce the Top Ten and open up online voting to the public.
The winner of The Rohatyn Prize will receive a one-time award of $15,000 to support, sustain or further an innovative school learning environment, program or practice that has the potential to be replicated by other schools.
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, February 28, 2011 - 12:49pm
In Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning, internationally acclaimed writer, consultant and game designer Marc Prensky outlines strategies for engaging students in the classroom and making technologically-saavy students partners in their own learning.
In Chapter 2, Moving to a Partnering Pedagogy, Prensky highlights Teaching Matters’ Voices and Choices curriculum as an exemplary model designed to meet the needs of the 21st century classroom:
“Guided, structured, or scaffolded partnering is practiced by many teachers who do project- or inquiry-based learning with students considered to be at risk. One group that helps many teachers do guided partnering is a New York City organization called Teaching Matters (www. Teachingmatters.org) They offer packaged solutions in the form of fully designed partnering projects on a variety of topics. Their designs include not only guiding questions, but also activities for the student to do in order to answer those questions. They also scaffold carefully the role of the teacher. An example is a partnering project on civil rights (see http://rights.teachingmatters.org)....
Are you an innovative school leader? Does your curriculum strike a balance between core academic and 21st century skills? Is your school pioneering new strategies for collaboration and assessment? Would you like additional resources to support your vision? If so, Teaching Matters wants to hear from you.
Beginning March 1, 2011, Teaching Matters will accept nominations for The Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation. The winner of The Rohatyn Prize will receive a one-time award of $15,000 to support, sustain or further an innovative school learning environment, program or practice that has the potential to be replicated by other schools.
Applicants can self-nominate or be nominated by a colleague. Submissions may focus on any of the five categories addressed in Teaching Matters’ Rubric for School Innovation.
The Rohatyn Prize was created to recognize and support the efforts of our principals. Teaching Matters values the work school leaders do and we want to ensure that other educators know about and learn from these successful innovations.
We look forward to announcing the winner in July 2011 at our annual summer Principals' Forum.
Voices and Choices is a three-unit series exploring the role of civics and active citizenship in a democracy. The units are designed to complement sixth, seventh, and eighth grade middle school curricula in social studies. This free, one day teacher institute is open to all educators interested in implementing one of the Voices and Choices units and participating in a city-wide culminating event. Click here to register.
The sixth grade unit, Democracy in Ancient Greece, focuses on democracy and citizenship within the context of the western world’s first democracy in ancient Athens. The seventh grade unit, Constitution Today, focuses on current issues of public debate relating to the Constitution of the United States. The eighth grade unit, The Evolution of Civil Rights, focuses on the expansion of civil rights and democracy throughout US history.
Teaching Matters also hosts city-wide student events for Consitution Today and Civil Rights...
Lynette GuastaferroTuesday, December 14, 2010 - 1:17pm
On Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Teaching Matters, Common Sense Media and Computers for Youth, co-sponsored a Special Principal's Forum entitled Connecting Schools and Families: A Conversation with Karen Mapp. Dr. Mapp, the Director of the Education Policy and Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-author of the acclaimed book, Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships, gave an engaging and informative presentation full of practical strategies school leaders can use to improve family involvement. Teaching Matters caught up with Dr. Mapp, before the forum to discuss the challenge and necessity of building partnerships between schools and parents to ensure student success.
Teaching Matters: What are some of the major challenges urban schools face in increasing family involvement in their students' education?
Karen Mapp: What I’ve seen is that school staff have received very little training on brokering partnerships with families. There is very little...
Lynette GuastaferroTuesday, December 7, 2010 - 10:16am
Join us Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:00PM for a live stream of our Special Principal's Forum - Connecting Schools and Families: A Conversation with Karen Mapp.
Karen Mapp, Director of the Education Policy and Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will guide us in strategizing new ways to foster a home-school connection focused on student success. The session will draw on Dr. Mapp’s acclaimed book, Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family-School Partnerships.
We welcome you to participate in the conversation via Twitter, #teachingmatters.
One of the hottest topics in American education these days is extending the learning day and with good reason. As Americans stare down what Tony Wagner terms the “global education gap” and contemplate the possibility that our entire K-12 education system is slipping into obsolescence, many educators and families alike are searching for ways to improve learning by devoting more time to it. One glaring fact is that by the time the average American student graduates high school, she or he will have spent a mere 13%...
Wednesday, December 8, 2010 3:45 pm - 6:00 pm at WNET/Channel 13 450 West 33rd Street 6th Floor, New York, NY 10001
Connecting Schools and Families: A Conversation with Karen Mapp
Karen Mapp, Director of the Education Policy and Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will guide us in strategizing new ways to foster a home-school connection focused on student success.
Kudos to John Clemente, Teaching Matters' Director of Educational Services!
On Thursday, November 18, John facilitated an online session entitled "Assessing Your Innovation Capabilities" as part of the 2010 Global Education Conference.
Participants from around the world tuned to learn how Teaching Matters' Rubric for School Innovation can be used to move schools toward becoming successful 21st century learning environments. Click here to access a recording of the live session.
Teaching Matters has been selected to participate in the 2010 Global Education Conference being held November 15 - 19, 2010. The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, world-wide community effort to increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities and initiatives.
The conference currently has scheduled 50 keynote addresses and over 300 general sessions from 62 countries. Sessions will focus on teachers, students, curriculum, policy and leadership and global issues.
On Thursday, November 18 at noon, John Clemente, Teaching Matters' Director of Educational Services, will faciliate a session entitltled "Assessing Your Innovation Capabilities." Participants will learn how Teaching Matters' Rubric for School Innovation can be used to move schools toward becoming sucessful 21st century learning environments.
The conference will take place in multiple time zones and multiple languages over five days....
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, November 8, 2010 - 4:16pm
“It’s No Longer Sufficient to Say ‘We Can Do Better,’ We Have to Do Better”
In case you missed the live stream, check out video of Bob Herbert’s keynote address from Teaching Matters’ Champions of Innovation and Education Celebration.
On Wednesday, November 3, 2010, Teaching Matters announced the first annual Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation -- a $15,000 award to be given to a school that exemplifies an academically rigorous and technologically innovative learning environment. Submissions will be open to all publicly-funded K-12 schools in the New York metropolitan area. The Prize will be awarded yearly beginning July 2011.
The winner of the Rohatyn Prize will receive a one-time award of $15,000 to support, sustain or further an innovative school learning environment, program or practice that has the potential to be replicated by other schools. The award can be applied to equipment, materials or human resources--including staffing, consultants, release and/or common planning time. Submissions will be judged using Teaching Matters' Rubric for School Innovation. The application and criteria for the Elizabeth Rohatyn...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, November 4, 2010 - 9:08am
Teaching Matters honored New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel I. Klein yesterday as a “Champion of Innovation and Education.”
Teaching Matters recognized Chancellor Klein’s extraordinary contributions to teaching and learning as well as his strategic focus to improve student achievement through technology innovations -- from...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, October 28, 2010 - 1:41pm
On Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 Teaching Matters will honor New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel I. Klein as a “Champion of Innovation and Education.”
Teaching Matters recognizes Chancellor Klein’s extraordinary contributions to teaching and learning as well as his strategic focus to improve student achievement through technology innovations -- from...
Lynette GuastaferroFriday, October 8, 2010 - 2:16pm
Do home computers have a negative effect on underperforming students? According to a recent study out of Duke University, the answer is yes. But are we asking the wrong question?
Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy recently published “Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology and Student Achievement.” Based on a five-year study of public school students in North Carolina, their research showed “modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, July 29, 2010 - 12:35pm
Teaching Matters hosted principals from across New York City and other education industry leaders to dialog with Michael Horn, co-author of the bestselling book Disrupting Class, at our Third Annual Forum for Principals on July 13th.
What is interesting about innovations that are disruptive is that, initially, they may appear to be much lower quality, especially in comparison to what is available (for example, the $300 mini-laptop is not as powerful as your old desktop computer), but they offer other appealing advantages – convenience, affordability, simplicity and the ability to serve individuals who previously might have been left behind. The opportunities for disruptive innovation often happen in areas of “non consumption” that is, places where there is a need but little to no service available. Over time, as more people take advantage of the lower quality but innovative product, it continues to improve and eventually leads the market, displacing what came before.
"Young people have always been instrumental in the most important social change in our society."
On May 7th and May 11th, 400 middle school students proved that they are ready and eager to join the discussion as well. These amazing kids worked in groups to determine their positions on such issues as racial profiling, gun control, trials for terrorism and religious freedom, to name a few. They researched the issues, Check out some of their incredible work below...
Last Friday, I was invited by the organization Teaching Matters to participate as an “expert” community activist in their annual Civil Rights Student Summit in downtown Manhattan. I was looking forward to the opportunity to work with such young students of diverse backgrounds on building effective campaigns for civil rights and social justice, but I had no idea how inspiring the experience would be.
The day began at the City Council Chambers at City Hall, where a few hundred students were welcomed by staff at Teaching Matters and a speech by Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who gave the Sikh Coalition a shout out for our organizing and advocacy work on bias-based bullying in NYC schools.
Then the students broke out into groups of a few dozen across the street at Pace University and made 5-7 minute presentations on a...
Advancing Principals' Vision of 21st Century Instruction with Innovation Field Trips
By John Clemente and Naomi Cooperman
This past week, the New York City Department of Education announced that it will advance its plan to provide more autonomy to principals. With this exciting change comes the potential downside of principal isolation. In the same way that focusing on student outcomes can sometimes narrow teachers' vision to what is possible in their classrooms, school leaders sharply focused on their own buildings can forget to let good ideas from the outside in.
There is no doubt that exchanging ideas with peers can inform principals' decision-making. Learning what strategies and models are working and what innovations are on the horizon can be powerful aids in advancing a leader's vision and strategic planning.
Call it an iFad if you want, I love my shiny new iPad. First off, I
have to say, the screen is amazing - really high quality, and the
on-screen typing is surprisingly good, and relatively easy to deal
with. There are enough technical reviews out there on the device
though, so I won't go into the hardware. Instead I took a quick look
at what was possible educationally with the device.
The first problem I have struggled with is how does a K-12 school
manage the software (apps) that are on the iPad if everything is
reliant on an iTunes account? So I called Apple and asked. The
response I got, from a very nice Apple expert, was that there isn't
anything in place. The device has to be tied to an iTunes account,
which initially has to be tied to a credit card. Districts can't make
large volume purchases with a software package pre-installed. "It's
all about individual customization." Which I guess makes sense. Just
not for 5th graders.
So assuming they eventually figure this out, what can an iPad do in a K-12 environment? Being an open-source advocate (cheap-sake), I hate
paying for software - even if it is only a .99 app. So, I took a look
at what you can get on an iPad for free.
Safari works great for the most part - no flash support, which is a
nightmare for content providers. However, flash is supported if
installed as part of an app. So,...
It takes more than ensuring educators and students have access to technology when schools begin the work of developing a 21st century strategic school plan. As innovative educators, students, leaders, and families, are well aware, technology is just a tool. In and of itself technology does not equate to either innovation or greater effectiveness. In fact poorly used technology generally results in substandard instruction. In some cases this further results in dropping technology-(rather than learner) driven programs and support. This is important to remember when developing a strategic school learning plan. What's most important is learning always come first.
I've heard one too many educational leader, teacher or parent proudly state that they are part of an innovative school as evidenced by the fact that they have laptops or Smartboards in every classroom. That is not impressive. What is impressive is when the conversation begins with how student learning is enriched in new ways and learners are engaged with innovative tools and ideas. I was recently asked by a school leader for feedback on...
Lynette GuastaferroFriday, December 18, 2009 - 2:04pm
Chancellor Klein has announced a series of initiatives acknowledging that schools need to retool and innovate to prepare students for the 21st century. So while the school system is now seriously exploring the role of technology to advance education, (something I care deeply about) the MTA is effectively eliminating the19th century technology that makes it possible for poor students to get to schools of choice…(the train)
The MTA has announced budget cuts that will eliminate the free metro-pass for students, requiring families to fork over $80+ dollars per child per month (think $240 dollars for a family of three) to go to school! Is this a pre- Brown vs Board of Education policy or what?
Choice in schools is a fundamental part of the New York City education deal. Students apply to middle and high schools and travel long distances to get opportunities not available to them locally.
The MTA’s mission is not education. Why then do they have control over this mission-critical educational budget item?
The impact on poor students is devastating. I, for one, would pay double for a metro card to see this cut taken off the table. In fact, the first student that reads this blog and proves that he or she can no longer afford to get to a school of choice because he or she can’t afford it … can...
There has been a lot of excitement in the technology-world about Google's new beta project, Google Wave - and rightfully so, it is an exciting new way of thinking about communication. There's also been a lot of confusion about what exactly wave is and what it does; and because people have had a hard time explaining the tool, it has come off as a complicated application. However, after playing with it for a couple days, my opinion is just the opposite.
So what is Google Wave?
The easiest way to think about Google Wave is to imagine real-time email; or a combination of email and instant messaging. You can send and recieve messages just like email - but if the person / people you are writing to are online, you can have a real-time conversation with them. They can even see your key-strokes while you're typing. On top of this tricked-out email system, they have added gadgets to enrich the whole experience. These are embeddable tools that allow you to do such things as polling, video conferencing, even sudoku - again all in real-time. There's even a "playback" feature if you want to visually see how the conversation took place.
So what does it do for Schools?
Teacher conferencing was the first thing that came to mind when I thought of Wave. The real-time communication tools with the flexibility of email and an archive of the conversation could be very powerful. However, online conferencing tools could be used for a variety of...
Google's next big thing in education might not be Google Wave or Google Apps for education, but a new data-analysis tool they've been working on, Google Fusion Tables. Google's long been known for making the hard to do simple, and Fusion Tables is no different. It makes looking at data simple - if you've ever struggled with a pivot table in excel, you'll appreciate immediately what it does.
Fusion Tables takes a standard data table either imported from excel, or shared from Google Apps and allows you to visualize the data without any technical complexity. So, imagine you're a middle school looking to improve your students in ELA. You've bought into the data movement, you get that there will always be standardized tests and measures, but that periodic assessments are also important. You even have your teachers on board, have setup data teams to meet and look at the data and have worked hard to standardize your rubrics. But you don't have any money for a fancy system, the ones your district provide you only work with the standardized data, and everything else is either paper-based or on individual spreadsheets / gradebooks. So how will Google help? First, setup Google Apps for education, it's free, and allows your teachers to collaborate on documents / spreadsheets. Next, create a wiki-spreadsheet for your school that has a column for the student, grade, teacher, class, and then any and every evaluative point throughout the...
Lynette GuastaferroWednesday, July 29, 2009 - 6:10pm
Not an Integrated Learning System: A New Vision for Teacher Collaboration and Specialization
This week I went to see School of One, declared a futuristic, 21st century classroom (NYTIMES, GOTHAMSCHOOLS). And it has taken me a while to process.
I met with architect of the system, Joel Rose, last year. He described a vision of a learning environment that met students exactly at their levels with lessons adjusted to their individualized learning styles. As he spoke, I thought to myself, this sounds just like an integrated learning system (ILS), except it is more complicated. Trying to be helpful, I even sent him a link to an ILS system after our meeting.
For those who don’t know what an Integrated Learning System is, this was the first cut at computer-aided instruction designed to let children learn at their own pace, be constantly assessed, and move up at their own levels. More sophisticated ILS systems started to aggregate content from a number of different content providers to offer students the best of breed content and meet their specific needs. Can you see how I might have been confused?
Joel’s vision went beyond the traditional ILS, because he was talking not only about computerized individualized instruction, but live-online tutoring, and teachers delivering their favorite lesson plans. Still, I knew one of the main challenges of...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, July 23, 2009 - 6:02pm
At our Innovative Principal Forum 2009, we invited three principals of schools experimenting extensively with technology as well as the Director of New Schools to speak with 65 of their peers about following questions:
What is the purpose of the 21st century school? video
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, July 16, 2009 - 9:46am
We are pleased to invite school leaders to our Annual School Leadership Forum 2009!
We have a fantastic group of principals and other school leaders presenting on:
Realizing the Promise of the 21st Century School: A Roadmap for Innovation
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115 Annual Forum for School Leaders
More information on the program is included below. Please let your school leaders know!
What is a 21st century school? Technology is radically changing every sector of our society, yet schools remain largely unchanged. Or do they? Hear from a panel of innovative NYC school leaders on the vanguard of rethinking urban education. They will speak about their experiences regarding what is important, the challenges and what's possible!
• Alisa Berger: Principal, NYC iSchool • Sarah Scrogin: Principal, East Bronx Academy for the Future • Gregg Korrol: Principal, PS 101 • Julian Cohen: Director, New School Development
Teaching Matters will also provide a new and simple assessment tool for gauging where your school lies on a continuum...
Check out the students at PS 5 in the Port Morris section of the Bronx and their amazing documentary about the history and impact of Nicholas Negroponte’s ground breaking XO pilot project in their school. The video speaks for itself.. I don’t want to give anything away.
Lynette GuastaferroTuesday, July 7, 2009 - 12:56pm
Iran Protests
So I was thinking about the teaching opportunity presented by the Iran election. What a way to see democracy in action… Yet, until a few minutes ago, where would my students get their news? Not old media.
I just spent an hour searching facebook (search IRAN) and twitter #iranelection and couldn’t believe the video and posts I was finding. For one, I found out I should wear green to show my support for the protestors and then watched a whole bunch of videos of riots and marches.
Yet, hours later, CNN finally got with the story. Tear Gas and Twitter: Iranians Take their Protest Online...
Lynette GuastaferroThursday, June 25, 2009 - 9:55am
Over 250 students from 25 New York City middle schools performed their own original poetry to an audience of their peers at Teaching Matters' 3rd Annual Spoken WordEvent ! Students performed in breakout rooms and finalists took the stage at the 92nd Street Y (see photos!). Follow the journey of one of our finalists Aline, thanks to the quick video skills of our high school event volunteers.
Her passionate performance of “Betrayer” took her through to the final six! Students and teachers alike gave rave reviews to finalists and to our master guest poet Kahlil Almustafa.
Lynette GuastaferroFriday, June 12, 2009 - 10:51am
HUNDREDS of New York students made their voices heard on critical social issues of the day spanning child labor to racial profiling as part of the Voices and Choices program with Teaching Matters!
Speaker Quinn Presenting to Students AND Students Workshopping Social Justice Campaigns with Real NYC Social Activitists With over 50 schools participating, students met with policy makers, the business community, and civic activists to present and improve their campaigns for social justice! Speaker Quinn urged hundreds of 8th graders and their teachers to continue their work in social justice just as she has been doing in the council for years. The students, who researched and prepared unique web-campaigns on civil rights movements presented them to activitists from the NYCLU, Lambda Legal, The Anti-Defamation League, The National Organization for Women, Ensaaf, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn...
Lynette GuastaferroFriday, June 12, 2009 - 10:50am
I had been waiting for someone to invent this. Simulations of some pretty challenging students to test the mettle and prepare pre-service educators. This video below says it all. It appears to be a pretty expensive model of teacher development, but the cost of figuring our classroom management on simulated students, not real ones, might be a few extra points on the ELA or Math tests. And we know that counts for quite a bit these days.
Bill’s key idea is that, ultimately, we don’t have to choose between accountability systems and instruction that addresses a broad array of skills and deep content. Because whether you are Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, or Linda Darling Hammond, you have common ground on one thing. .. our assessments can be radically improved.
Over the last eight years, education took major steps towards holding schools accountable and measuring their progress. But our actual assessments, for the most part, took a few steps back. We automated the most basic forms of assessment, and states stopped experiments in performance-based assessments designed to measure the higher-order thinking our kids need to succeed in the future.
Now that the FEDS, the teachers union, and the governors, ALL agree that we need national standards – this conversation about investing seriously in assessment innovation is extremely timely and relevant. My vote for how to use some of this stimulus!
Lynette GuastaferroFriday, June 12, 2009 - 10:49am
For those interested in education innovation made possible by technology you must read Bill Tucker’s new report - Beyond the Bubble: Technology and the Future of Student Assessment.
Bill is reframing the debate between two key education camps. Bill’s key idea is that, ultimately, we don’t have to choose between accountability systems and instruction that addresses a broad array of skills and deep content. Because whether you are Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, or Linda Darling Hammond, you have common ground on one thing. .. our assessments can be radically improved.
Over the last eight years, education took major steps towards holding schools accountable and measuring their progress. But our actual assessments, for the most part, took a few steps back. We automated the most basic forms of assessment, and states stopped experiments in performance-based assessments designed to measure the higher-order thinking our kids need to succeed in the future.
Now that the FEDS, the teachers union, and the governors, ALL agree that we need national standards – this conversation about investing seriously in assessment innovation is extremely timely and relevant.
My vote for how to use some of this stimulus! For more discussion on this issue click here.
Lynette GuastaferroMonday, November 2, 2009 - 8:35pm
Laptops are getting cheaper by the minute. In setting the bar to deliver the world’s first $100 laptop, Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman of One Laptop Per Child, inspired the development of an entire class of low cost machines now available to schools. Low cost laptops from $200 to $350 are now hitting the market. Furthermore, one developer is now promising a $75 unit by 2009.
With one-to-one computing fast becoming an affordable reality for schools, it is essential that we carefully consider what has and has not worked in prior implementations so we do not repeat past mistakes. Teaching Matters is in the process of piloting low cost laptops. We are carefully monitoring and documenting (via an online blog) what is and is not working for classrooms.
One-to-One Computing: Does It Even Matter?
The jury is still out on the benefits of one-to-one computing. Many educators believe that until we seamlessly integrate technology into schools, we will not adequately prepare students for life and work in the 21st century. Others see technology as largely irrelevant to student achievement. It is in fact true that when new technologies are introduced into classrooms their use is often emphasized above learning. Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999) note that “the technology learning curve tends to eclipse content learning temporarily; both kids and teachers seem to orient to technology until they become comfortable.” Furthermore, as reported by the New York Times, school districts often drop one-to-one computing because they end up spending too much time and...
burners and take out the Balzac? Will social studies teachers be responsible for teaching contractions alongside the Constitution? If we misunderstand the idea, we may misapply it, and it may even lead to resentment among teachers who feel they are being asked to take on another’s responsibility.
Teacher effectiveness is a hot topic these days, but lately the conversation and investment has focused on teacher evaluation. While measuring teachers’ effectiveness is a significant first step, more important will be to use this information effectively and strategically to develop, retain and reward effective teachers.
expecting, confirming your predictions and giving you valuable evidence in making your case to others. Many times, however, the data doesn’t show anything at all.
Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Linda Darling-Hammond. She is being honored by Teaching Matters as our 2011 Champion of Education and Innovation. Below is an abridged transcript of our conversation on key issues in today's education landscape -- Common Core, Assessment, Teacher Quality and America's commitment to real education reform. 
As of July 2011, 43 states have opted to implement the 
Teaching Matters’ work was recently featured in a 
NEW YORK, May 16, 2011 /
Teaching Matters is pleased to announce that we have advanced to the second round of consideration for a 
As a facilitator of the TERC Using Data institute, I try not to play favorites among the different stages of the process. Every link in the chain is important towards improving student outcomes. But I must confess that I always look forward to the item-level analysis with just a little extra bit of enthusiasm. This is where the school-based data teams that I work with are most likely to achieve a breakthrough and gain new understandings about the problems their students are having. Even the teachers who arrive being the most skeptical about the importance of data are subject to “Aha!” moments when they actually look at the questions their students got wrong on the exams and are able to specifically target a cause and a solution. 
Featured in EdWeek's 
Teaching Matters is proud to be a key sponsor of the 2011 
Teaching Matters is now accepting nominations for the 
In 
Voices
On Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Teaching Matters, 
Join us Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:00PM for a 
Kudos to John Clemente, Teaching Matters' Director of Educational Services!
Teaching Matters has been selected to participate in the 
Call it an iFad if you want, I love my shiny new iPad. First off, I
have to say, the screen is amazing - really high quality, and the
on-screen typing is surprisingly good, and relatively easy to deal
with. There are enough technical reviews out there on the device
though, so I won't go into the hardware. Instead I took a quick look
at what was possible educationally with the device.
It takes more than ensuring educators and students have access to technology when schools begin the work of developing a 21st century strategic school plan. As innovative educators, students, leaders, and families, are well aware, technology is just a tool. In and of itself technology does not equate to either innovation or greater effectiveness. In fact poorly used technology generally results in substandard instruction. In 
Chancellor Klein has announced a series of initiatives acknowledging that schools need to retool and innovate to prepare students for the 21st century. So while the school system is now seriously exploring the role of technology to advance education, (something I care deeply about) the MTA is effectively eliminating the19th century technology that makes it possible for poor students to get to schools of choice…(the train) 
Google's next big thing in education might not be Google Wave or Google Apps for education, but a new data-analysis tool they've been working on, Google Fusion Tables. Google's long been known for making the hard to do simple, and Fusion Tables is no different. It makes looking at data simple - if you've ever struggled with a pivot table in excel, you'll appreciate immediately what it does. 
At our Innovative Principal Forum 2009, we invited three principals of schools experimenting extensively with technology as well as the Director of New Schools to speak with 65 of their peers about following questions:
