Educational Methods Commons^™

Literacy-Based Action Research: Strategies For Improving Student Achievement, Anne Katz Ph.D., Deborah Jaudon, Danielle Russell, Jennifer Formby

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

The presentation will highlight literacy-based action research projects by three Reading Specialist M.Ed. graduate students. The topics of enhancing struggling readers’ vocabulary development using technology; effects of technology during summer school on student promotion; as well as infusion of dialogue and metacognitive strategies to promote self-efficacy and early reading success were explored. Tools for attendees to implement the process of action research in their own classroom will be outlined.

Literacy For Life: Daily Reading Effectively Promotes Success (Reps), Karen Washington, Terecia Gill

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Literacy is at the heart of basic education and essential for eradicating poverty, achieving equality, and ensuring that all students have the opportunity for lifelong success. Administrators, instructional coaches, and teachers will be fascinated by the simple, but effective strategy for improving the literacy skills of students at risk through authentic, highly-engaging daily “REPS” activities in every class.

Building A Better Risk Prevention Model, Steven Hornyak

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation chronicles the work of Houston County Schools in developing a risk prevention model built on more than ten years of longitudinal student data. In its second year of implementation, Houston At-Risk Profiles (HARP), has proven effective in identifying those students most in need of support and linking them to interventions and supports that lead to improved outcomes and significantly reduces the risk of failure.

"New Outlets: Plugging In Makes A Difference", Cary E. Holman Mr., Jennifer Kinsman Mrs.

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Students need and want to be heard and valued. It is extremely important for schools to be creative when choosing initiatives. Initiatives or any program implementation must be interesting and relevant to the diverse populations of students and their needs. It's time for schools to "Plug In." "New Outlets" are a Must. This workshop will provide educators with tools and strategies to use to build and sustain effective programs while working with Youth-At-Risk.

Trust Building Tools For Talking With Youth During Times Of Conflict, Bonnie C. Springer, Andrea Crist

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation will provide tools and strategies for turning crisis into opportunity. The skills of Life Space Crisis Intervention provide helping adults faced with the extreme behavior of youth during times of crisis strategies which build trust and connections in meaningful and healing ways; turning crisis into opportunity for at risk youth to develop social responsibility and grow emotionally

Reviving Realistic Dreams …..What A High School Diploma Does For Youth At Risk, Patti Huffman, Mary Ashby

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This non-traditional high school empowers youth at risk to earn their high school diploma. The major objective is graduating cohorts on time with preparedness for college/career. By fostering a sense of belonging, safety, success, self-worth, and hope, “can’t” is transformed into “can” as students realize their dreams.

“Excellence In All We Do”

Target audience: administrators, superintendents, high school teachers/graduation coaches

Engaging Students Through Instructional Games, Reginald Carruth

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Teachers will be given creative tips and tools to learn how to engage youth-at-risk through instructional games. Students will enjoy exploring hands-on activities that take from everyday games and lessons by fusing and transforming them into meaningful collaborative grouping exercises.

Is Setting Higher Standards The Answer?, Geoff N. Masters Ao

Teacher columnist – Geoff Masters

Raising the expected performance standard in each year of school and holding all teachers and students accountable for achieving these higher standards may not be the most effective way to improve levels of performance in Australian schools.

Track 2 – Environment Design Sprint Challenge, Britta W. Mckenna, Carl Heine

Professional Learning Day

Using Paul Hawkens, “Drawdown – The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming”, as a starting point, participants will take on the question of “What Can I do?” in developing actionable plans and prototypes in a design sprint challenge. Using BOSI DNA to identify areas of team strength, teams will work together to design the most innovative solutions to improve planet resiliency from climate impact. Culminating presentations conclude the event with an overall innovation and impact winner.

Track 1 – Clean Workshop, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Professional Learning Day

The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) Portal was launched in 2010 as a National Science Digital Library Pathways project. It is led by the science education expertise of TERC, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College. As of 2012, CLEAN has been syndicated to NOAA's climate.gov portal. CLEAN's primary effort is to steward the collection of climate and energy science educational resources and to support a community of professionals committed to improving climate and energy literacy. Participants will spend their …

Epistemological Ruptures: Flashback On Fieldwork Dilemmas While Doing Research On Friends At Home, Israel Aguilar

The Qualitative Report

While doing fieldwork at home and/or with people who are familiar can yield new knowledge, researchers using ethnographic techniques ought to first assume the role of apprentice and enact vulnerability before they can represent findings that represent what really happened. Doing otherwise can tarnish relationships or jeopardize a study. The history of narrative within ethnographic research is discussed as an introduction to the author’s own personal narrative, which is in the form of a flashback that illustrates the journey he embarked on in 2010 when he initiated dissertation research in his hometown of south Texas. It is here where he …

Session 3b: Stress....What Is It And How Do I Fix It, Sowmya Anjur, Mary Myers

Professional Learning Day

Join us in learning about stress, its causes, its signs and symptoms and methods for preventing, coping with and/or relieving stress. Popular mind-body fitness methods such as Yoga, Pilates, Qi Gong, and Tai Chi will be examined and performed within this session.

Session 3c: Building A Microbial Fuel Cell, Peter Clancy, Joe Golab, Patrick Young

Professional Learning Day

This project introduces students to the science behind MFCs and provides a practical demonstration about this type of renewable energy technology. The technology produces electricity from the byproduct of bacteria breaking down organic matter. The Alternative Energy Module addresses four Engineering NGSS standards as well as global issues such as energy supply and demand, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A microbial fuel cell (MFC) aligns with a United Nations Sustainability Goal, i.e. Clean Energy.

Session 3d: Wind Energy, Mark Carlson, Angela Ahrendt, Nicole Ross

Professional Learning Day

Design, construction, and testing will occur in two stages involving blade shape and number followed by wind tracking and generator gearing. Three NGSS Engineering Standards (Global Issue, Problem Breakdown, and Optimization) are directly addressed. Scientific concepts include circuitry, power, mechanical advantage, and rotational motion.

Session 3h: Learning Progressions Of Elementary Data And Measurement, Karen Togliatti

Professional Learning Day

The foundation for formal statistical and probability concepts is laid in the early grades through investigating both categorical and measurement data. Join us for a quick trip through the progression of categorical data and measurement data analysis from kindergarten through fifth-grade. Example tasks will be provided.

Session 3e: Teaching Using Un Sustainable Development Goals, Donald Dosch, Sarah O'Leary-Driscoll, Crystal Randall

Professional Learning Day

This session will focus on how we are using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as guideposts for curriculum development in several of our different science classes. Students will join us to present some of their varied academic work, and share the importance of these activities in their education. Part of our discussion will focus on scaffolding the learning so that students are able to perform successfully in these contextual and issues-based activities. We will also build in time for participant discussion on current issues and ideas for incorporating them effectively into their own teaching.

Session 2b: Building A Telescope, Peter Clancy, Brooke Schmidt

Professional Learning Day

This is a project suitable for a physics class that covers geometric optics. Students tasked with this project assignment use these principles to select lenses to create a telescope with adequate magnification to read a target with lines of text of successively smaller font sizes. Students also learn how to characterize the telescope by measuring the lens focal lengths, and determining the theoretical magnification and tube. Educators attending this workshop will be given a brief lesson on telescope optics, and will be given the opportunity to select lenses, construct a telescope, and use it to read the target.

Session 2d: Mathematical Play, Karen Togliatti

Professional Learning Day

Our youngest students are equipped with the skills and practices needed to be successful mathematicians. That is, they are curious, creative and innovative. Given the opportunity to engage in mathematical play, students are encouraged to take risks, pursue their own questions, and naturally investigate mathematics. Research shows that this practice is beneficial for all students, regardless of grade level. So, come and play!

Session 1f: Daphnia Magna And Water Monitoring, Julie Polz, Karen Togliatti, Angela Ahrendt

Professional Learning Day

Daphnia Magna, also known as water fleas, are commonly used in water toxicity studies since they are very sensitive to chemical changes in their environment, which make them good organisms to use in water quality testing. We will be testing the effect of six environmental pollutants on the Daphnia heart rate using a microscope, and then measuring their response to each of these pollutants.

Session 1d: Mathematicians Take Risks, Karen Togliatti

Professional Learning Day

The field of mathematics is driven by problems that currently have no known solution. In order to understand these types of problems, mathematicians take risks. They try novel approaches, inventing new mathematics along the way. In much the same way, we want students to be able to take mathematical risks to generate their own mathematical understanding. Join us for a discussion of how to empower our students to become risk-takers in the classroom.