It is hard to believe that the holidays are upon us! Time is beginning to speed up, and I am busy attending conferences and trainings, as well as increasing my work here in OISE at NSF. (How do you like those acronyms?) As I mentioned, I attended the 2007 National Leadership Development Symposium, "Changing the Course of Science Education," sponsored by the National Science Resources Center of the National Academies of Science and the Smithsonian Institution. The symposium focused on ways of leveraging the involvement of a wide range of organizations in the science education of our nation's youth. Topics included: Research-based, effective K-16 science teaching and learning, characteristics of effective programs in school districts and states and forming effective partnerships for sustaining systemic reform. I learned about some fantastic science and math programs in other states and districts, as well as meeting several business leaders from Bristol-Meyers-Squibb and the Michelin group who are involved in trying to improve science education for K-12 students.
On Thursday night of the conference, they invited us to a beautiful, sit-down dinner in the Smithsonian Castle. it is apparently fairly rare to get to do this, and the surroundings were unreal! Take a look:
On the Friday night the symposium ended, most of the Einstein Fellows and I went to the Air and Space Museum for Smithsonian Teacher's night, where we got to see the new IMAX "Sea Monsters 3D" movie (highly recommend for all students and teachers alike!)
The teachers in the DC area have so many wonderful resources and opportunities available to them for their own professional development and for their students' learning. And, they treat educators well here! Always free, lovely food and drinks!
I also squeezed in a panel discussion at the Carnegie Institute sponsored by Common Good, called "Class Disrupted." I found it very relevant, and cause for thinking about all we are doing in education. The Program director of Educators for Social Responsibility, the RCCP folks, was there, along with several other social and education researchers. Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary, was the closing speaker, as he is involved in RCCP through his "Operation Respect" program. (Photos are of me, with fellow NASA Einstein Fellow Ann Coren, and me and Peter- he is ery friendly!)
The main point of the panel was to try to highlight to the NCLB folks that, you can have the highest standards, best trained teachers, best curriculum, etc., etc. however, if we don't address the social and emotional issues of kids (poverty, violence and such) they won't be ready to learn. LCSD had a big push some years ago for RCCP, and we seem to have just let it go by the wayside in our focus on academic achievement. I think we all need to be reminded that we are working with children with many needs and that, just because we have to answer to the feds, we need to take care of kids' basic needs before they can benefit from the Highly Qualified teachers and great instruction we offer!
On Monday, the 5th of November, we went to another panel, Wireless and Well-Prepared: The E-mergence of Technology in the Classroom with David Thornburg,founder and Director of Global Operations for the Thornburg Center, Mary Cullinane, Director, U.S. Partners in Learning, Microsoft Corporation and consultant to the new Philadelphia High School of the Future, Walter Bender, President of Software and Content, One Laptop per Child Foundation, and Amy Klobuchar, United States Senator, Minnesota and a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Innovation. Since all of us were true technology in education believers, it was a bit like preaching to the choir, but it was interesting to hear about the High School of the Future, and see the new One Laptops. It will be interesting to see if these take hold in the U.S. and throughout the world, as there is some controversy surrounding giving children in developing, poor countries technology, rather than food, shelter and medicine.
I continued working in the office on the IRES proposals, getting more reviewers for them and the IRFP's, and I wrote an abstract for a funded proposal that will appear on the NSF website (eventually...) I have also been going to panel reviews for biology and geosciences proposals with an international component. This has been very interesting, and should be helpful in the future to our grantwriting efforts. It is informative to see how the experts critique the proposals, and I see that writers must be brief, but explicit, and not leave anything to the reviewers assumptions. I also went in and out of several sessions at the NSDL (National Science Digital Library) Conference that wwas held here at NSF (well, at the Westin across the street, anyway!) That is an outstanding resource for science and math teachers, especially middle school, and I hope to do some professional development around that when I get back. In the meantime, if you are interested, here is the website, http://nsdl.org/
On Thursday, the 8th, I had a wonderful opportunity to go to the Louden Academy of Sciences, a magnet high school math and science program, to see about a dozen U.S. and a dozen Singapore students present research projects they have been collaborating on over the web. First, I was astounded by the sophistated level of equipment in their science labs. I was also stunned by the advanced level of the research that the students were undertaking and that they were using their social networking and email and web-based video conferencing to collaborate internationally. I feel so lucky to be able to go and visit exemplary programs this year, and hope that LCSD colleagues might be able to see some of these firsthand as well.
Last weekend, Veteran's Day, I traveled to St. Louis for the National Quality in Education Conference, and met up with my LCSD friends and colleagues. It was so great to see everyone and spend some "Quality" time with them.
We had many interesting and thought provoking conversations, and though I am having a unique and memorable experience here in DC, I miss everyone from home- both personally and professionally- and look forward to coming back and working to implement some of the great ideas people in LCSD have and meshing them with all I am learning this year.
Finally, when I returned to DC from St. Louis, I had the chance to go to a few more discussions and events. I went to the Woodrow Wilson Center for a panel discussion on Science and Math Education in Asia and the differences between Asia and the U.S.
Of course, the U.S. is well behind Asian countries in science and math student achievement, and some of the differences that contribute to this are elements that are being studied by education researchers, such as teacher preparation & professional development, standardized national curriculum, parental support and cultural respect for teachers and education. One interesting piece of information was that the bottom 20% of Asian students were still performing at significantly higher levels than the bottom 20% of U.S. students.
From this panel I went to the Kennedy Center for a reception for American Education Week that introduced a new professional development effort, supported by the Verizon Foundation, to train teachers to use Thinkfinity.org, a website that offers 55,000 lesson plans and resources for all subject areas. Reg Weaver, the NEA President, was the guest speaker, and spent some time conversing with me and Another of my Einstein Fellow friends, Jennifer Berry-Rickert, from Tennessee. Oregon is not currently one of the 17 states this effort is focusing on....wonder how we can change that?
Finally, some of us are going to be working on an interagency project with NOAA, USGS and the National Park Service to revise a Climate Change curriculum for middle schools. While we were at the meeting yesterday, we had a sneak peak at the Second Life Virtual Worlds learning tool that NOAA is developing. It was awesome, and I now have a small idea of why our kids' brains are different from ours! You have to see it to believe...
Whew! I now embark on a period of relative calm, between now and when I come home for Christmas on the 20th of December. Fewer professional development activities that take me out of NSF, and more OISE work, as the IRES proposal reviews start to come in. I am ready to focus more on my NSF work as I am actually on professional Development overload! And, Julie (my sister from Seattle) comes tonight for a week, and Don arrives Wed. night to spend Thanksgiving here in DC.
I hope all of you reading this will have a restful holiday and enjoy being with your loved ones. I look forward to seeing you soon!
Ruth
