Greetings from the Learning Bridges Team!

We want to provide YOU with FREE resources and focus on special opportunities that might be helpful for your school improvement efforts.

We invite you to print the resources that you can use in your classroom or school. We also hope you will share the newsletter with your colleagues so that they might also receive the FREE resources. When it is possible, we will connect the resources to your state's content standards - whether those are research-based instructional strategies/interventions or parent activities.

We will feature one of the powerful online courses, an instructor, and a teaching resource - all connected to your state standards and assessments.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

When you try an instructional strategy, share a parent activity with parents, complete online professional development, or use one of the teaching resources, we hope you will come back and share your thoughts with us online. Read what other teachers have said, too!

We invite you to join our team as a Bridge to a New Way of Teaching and Learning!

Greetings from the Learning Bridges Team!

Spring flowers are in bloom! Kids are getting rambunctious! State Testing is almost done! Summer is around the corner!

TIME IS RUNNING OUT, but you still have just enough! Don't miss this opportunity for your district or school to participate at NO COST! Letters of Commitment must be sent to Dr. Sheila Arens at McREL by June 1, 2010.

McREL (Mid-continent Research in Education and Learning) will be conducting research through a federally funded IES Grant on Learning Bridges for 2 purposes:

1. To validate the Effect Sizes - the measure of HOW MUCH increase in achievement is gained with the Learning Bridges System, including its professional development.
2. To identify the critical attributes of Learning Bridges that give it the power to impact achievement.

All of the information required for YOUR district or school to participate can be found by clicking here. Included is a Sample Letter of Commitment which can be sent to Dr. Sheila Arens, McREL.

Don't miss out on this chance to improve academic achievement in your school or district WITHOUT COST!

Read more

Featured Online Class - EDCI 607I – Classroom Assessment and Data Analysis

EDCI 607I Classroom Assessment and Data Analysis

Classroom Assessment and Data Analysis is a course intended to give teachers (both novices and experienced) a deep understanding of essential components for the most effective techniques for classroom assessment. A variety of assessment formats will be discussed and practiced through Learning Log and Conference Center assignments. The importance of aligning curriculum, instruction and assessment will be shared, along with the methods for this alignment process. Participants will apply their knowledge of types of learning and how this affects assessment, systems of thinking, assessment for diverse learners, and determining reliability and validity in assessments. Participants will also learn when it is appropriate to use various assessment formats, how to write effective assessments and how to interpret assessment results.

Read more

FREE Instructional Strategy - Language Arts- Grade 12 Discussion and Analysis ES = 1.32

Strand: Elements of Literature

Standard 1: Identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structures and elements of literature.

Benchmark: Understands the effects of complex literary devices and techniques on the overall quality of a work (e.g., tone, irony, mood, figurative language, allusion, diction, dialogue, symbolism, point of view, style)

Discussion and Analysis encourages students to gain new understandings and insights into presented or discussed information by testing the validity of propositions and using higher order thinking in conjunction with effective use of content organization.

Discussion and Analysis brings to mind a combination of two sub-strategies:

1. Verbalization, which is thinking aloud providing dual processing into the brain for retention with a superior impact on achievement, and,

2. Critical Thinking Skills, which engage students in inductive, deductive, categorization, classification, and a number of other higher order thinking skills.

Many teachers enjoy engaging students in Discussion and Analysis because of its high impact on academic achievement - a gain of 41 percentile points.

Read more

FREE Parent Activity - Elements of Literature - Grade 1

Strand: Elements of Literature - Grade 1

Standard: Identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structures and elements of literature:

Benchmark: Identifies setting, main characters, main events, and problems in stories.

Parent Activity: Story Monsters

Want a fun way to learn how to identify setting, main characters, main events and problems in stories? Parents can make the identification fun with a charming way to remember them. See how many different ones you can make!

Read more

Featured Instructor - Peggy Blood

Hello: colleagues, patrons of Learning Bridges, and Mr. Professor; I am Peggy Blood.

I especially would like to say hello to my animated friend Mr. Professor. I met Mr. Professor in 2006 and fell in love with him. My how time flies when you are having fun and learning. After completing the introductory course I would go back just to revisit Mr. Professor’s wisdom. Wow, he is someone to emulate.

Learning Bridges courses are well designed and as a professor I have learned so much from my students and through teaching the course. My students are educators from various school districts who are dedicated professionals. It is obvious they care and are concerned that each student learns in their class; and they want to be well equipped with knowledge and skills to provide the best instruction and learning environment for their students. It is so enjoyable to collaborate and discuss classroom issues with them.

Information learned in the class stays with you. The lessons are presented in such a structure that retention is not a problem. I believe Learning Bridges helped me in my last trip to Africa. The US State Department sent me to Liberia for approximately three weeks to foster cross-cultural dialogue through lectures, workshops, and television and radio appearances. I found myself discussing the “brain” and the theory of multiple intelligences; as in relates to teaching and learning. If it hadn’t been for Learning Bridges I seriously doubt a spontaneous discussion about the theory of multiple -intelligence would have been discussed as an example in teaching and learning. One never knows what is stored back in the brain.

It was truly an amazing trip visiting universities and schools. The 3,500,000 people are painfully trying to rebuild their country after several wars coup d’états and one major devastation war that paralyzed the country. Liberia, known as the land founded for African American free slaves has to restart from infancy. The education system has just begun to move forward after losing teachers, buildings, supplies; all that makes up an educational system. The entire country has to rebuild its infrastructure; it still struggles due to lack of investment. There is evidence of growth and revitalization of the human spirit.

Read more

Featured Teaching Resource - Designing and Assessing Educational Objectives

Designing and Assessing Educational Objectives
Applying the New Taxonomy
Robert J. Marzano

A hands-on guide for applying the New Taxonomy to develop meaningful and targeted educational objectives and assessments.

Translating mandated standards into concrete objectives and then creating appropriate tasks to assess student learning of those objectives can be a challenge for educators. This practical resource provides a step-by-step process that shows readers how to make designing educational objectives and creating appropriate assessment tasks a part of their day-to-day practice.

Read more

Discussion Topic - What do YOU think?

TEACHER DISPOSITIONS

Teaching involves more than effective planning, instructional knowledge, and teaching skills. It also extends to professional dispositions. Dispositions are similar to professional beliefs or values systems, but they are more than that. Dispositions extend to professional modes of conduct and the ways in which beliefs and attitudes are displayed by teachers’ actions in and out of the classroom. Teachers with positive professional dispositions tend to act in ways that elevate the profession of teaching in the eyes of others. (Ros-Voseles & Moss, 2007)

What do YOU think are the important dispositions that YOU have that are important for all teachers to hold? Does Danielson's list make sense to you?

Read more