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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
I’d Love To Be A Guest (IRL Or Virtually) If You’re Having A Discussion About One Of My Books!
Several Teachers at a nearby middle school were reading one of my books and invited me to attend their discussion group. I had a great time – and I think they did, too! I’ve done something like that now-and-then over the years in-person and virtually for educators and classes, and always enjoyed them. I have a little more availability now that I’m retired, and would be happy to visit in-person if you’re in the Sacramento area or virtually anywhere else. You can contact me on social media or at mrferlazzo at aol dot com. FYI, here are free resources from all my books, including our newest one, The Better Teacher’s Toolbox.      Resources For Teaching About The Fall Season Valiphotos / Pixabay
It’s that time of year! You might be interested in The Best Sites For Images Of Fall Foliage (& For Teaching About The Season).
 Sentences Of The Week geralt / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: The decisions that Harvard makes create a permission structure for other institutions to follow suit—after all, if one of the most venerable schools in the country doesn’t need a writing center in order to be “elite,” why would a public university, or a regional liberal-arts college, or a community college need one? Evidence-informed should not be reduced to evidence-dictated. Across four studies, participants with stronger “dangerous world beliefs” overestimated the likelihood of harmful events, and viewed unfamiliar faces as more threatening and less trustworthy. But in a world where it is often hard to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else, the challenge of explaining the world to a 10-year-old, or designing a jar that an octogenarian can open, is sometimes just a prompt to do a better job of what we were trying to do in the first place. This means, in part, that the pushback on ed-tech is framed in terms of “bans” — that is, in terms of an absence or a lack — rather than as an opportunity to do something else with the limited amount of time that one has in a class, in a day, in a week, in an academic year. There’s always an opportunity cost in any curricular or instructional decision; educators know that. But ed-tech proponents make it sound as though the cost of not using technology means that there is somehow nothing in its place. See The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Careful Around Ed Tech Research has found that a willingness to ask for help is crucial to achievement. “The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.” Studies simplify reality; classrooms are messy and complex. Teachers shouldn’t just follow research like a recipe—it should sharpen their judgment, not replace it. See The Best Resources Showing Why We Need To Be “Data-Informed” & Not “Data-Driven” and The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret Education Research Today, Aroneanu said, movements are built not necessarily on what people think, but instead on what they feel. Researchers found that simply repeating a decision can reshape what we prefer, causing familiar choices to feel better than alternatives. When people let a chatbot do their writing—even if they’re guiding and carefully reviewing its work—they might not realize that it’s doing some of their thinking too A few years ago, I edited an essay by the children’s-book author Katherine Marsh that identified one reason young kids were less motivated to read: Schools often push them toward a “hyperfocus on analysis” and give precedence to individual paragraphs and sentences rather than entire narratives. But, Marsh argues, “the best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story.” And a great way to get a kid interested in a story is by reading it aloud to them.
 Here’s The Introductory Activity I’m Doing With My Pull-Out Elementary ELL Newcomer Class (Downloadables Included) TheDigitalArtist / Pixabay
As regular readers know, I retired from the classroom last year. However, I immediately began volunteering in two places – as a tutor at our local Juvenile Hall, and at an elementary school working with ELL Newcomers. I begin my second year working with the ELL Newcomers on Friday, where I’ll teach a pull out class of nine students, mixed with a range from second-to-sixth grade. Here’s my plan for the class:
Teaching this kind of class is a different kettle of fish from teaching secondary newcomers, which is why I wanted to do it during my retirement! I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For Starting Off The New School Year In English Language Learner Classes.  Every District Superintendent Should Read This Article On “Initiative Overload”
Every teacher knows the burden and the ridiculousness of the annual “new initiatives” that come out of their district central offices. And every teacher know that most of them go nowhere. I would strongly recommend that every district superintendent read this Harvard Business Review article, Is Your Company Suffering from Initiative Overload? (they can also listen to it as a podcast). Just about everything in it can be applied to schools. Good luck to everybody out there who’s supposed to implement this year’s new initiatives!  More Recent Articles |
