The New York Times offers up a piece about a New York City school that has put building background knowledge at the heart of its curriculum. P.S. 142, a school in lower Manhattan hard by the Williamsburg Bridge “has made real life experiences the center of academic lessons,” the paper notes, “in hopes of improving reading and math skills by broadening children’s frames of reference.”
“Experiences that are routine in middle-class homes are not for P.S. 142 children. When Dao Krings, a second-grade teacher, asked her students recently how many had never been inside a car, several, including Tyler Rodriguez, raised their hands. ‘I’ve been inside a bus,’ Tyler said. ‘Does that count?’”
This is not a Core Knowledge school, but the teachers and staff clearly understand the critical connection between background knowledge, vocabulary and language proficiency. The Times describes the schools “field trips to the sidewalk,” with children routinely visiting parking garages and auto body shops, or examining features of every day life.
“In early February the second graders went around the block to study Muni-Meters and parking signs. They learned new vocabulary wor
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There are many ways in which you can help your child develop before starting school. Working with your child in an attempt to help them develop on an academic and social level prior to starting school can help them immensely.
Preschool development can help to make a child more social and it can help them to gain an academic head start by the time they enter first grade. Daycare can be a great start for children to grow socially and psychologically. Most working parents today do enroll their child in some kind of daycare facility for at least a few hours per day.
Daycare can help the child make friends, share new ideas and thoughts with other children their own age. This kind of interaction can attribute to a child being more academically inclined and can assist them with making new friends more easily as they get older.
In addition to preschool programs, there are a number of things a parent can do to help the child develop more rapidly on many levels.
First, the parent should take the time to read to the child and answer any questions the child may have. Read more…
A year ago, I wrote a blog about using ArcGIS Online to explore ecoregions, and doing it on an iPad, in addition to a regular computer. I want to enhance the map by adding another key layer: drought status. I’m interested in learning which ecoregions face a near-term issue.
The U.S. government runs a portal about drought, with maps, data, news, and links. But what if you just want to drought data added into your ecoregion map? Think back to another recent blog entry that walked through finding and adding special services. This time, we need to find some drought data. By searching the information, links, and applications at the drought portal, I found the National Climate Data Center’s web service for the Palmer Drought Severity Index. the combined map.
Finally, since the two color layers compete, I used the idea from another blog entry to create a three-panel map, showing a location by terrain, drought, and ecoregion.
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What makes for good teaching? And how does the Dallas school district get more of it?
That is one of the themes we are going to explore on this blog this year. So, let me take a stab at the start of an answer. I’d like to hear ideas from Education Front readers, though. This conversation is ongoing.
As far as what constitutes good teaching, I’d say it starts with a passion for the work. In my experience as a student, parent and journalist, a sense of calling has seemed to separate the stand-out instructors from the average to dismal ones. The leaders have a deep desire to connect with kids.
That quality points to the next must-have ingredient. A top-tier teacher knows how to relate to their students. I remember talking to one Dallas principal a couple of years ago when he brought this point up. I was thinking more about a teacher’s pedagogical skills. But he was right. Good teachers have a knack for letting their students know they care about them.
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Do you need a certification to work as an EKG technician? The answer is no, you do not, but if you want to earn higher wages, you should spend your time on the appropriate EKG technician training. The average salary for this job is about $ 45,000 if you are certified.
You should be certified by the nationally recognized organization. Most of the training involved in becoming an ECG technology arrives on the job. You may gain some experience working as a medical assistant or Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) and then move to the cardiology area. Read more…
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