BE INSPIRED
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Join Us!
What: Chocolate Inspiration - an annual celebration of Inspired Teachers and delicious chocolate.
When: February 26, 2009 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Where: The Residence of the Ambassador of Switzerland
Tickets: Tickets are $50 for teachers, $150 for non-teachers. Please call Pam Greene to RSVP and receive your teacher discount. 202.462.1956
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| Inspired Teacher Blog |
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I remember the first time I realized you could be smart doing something besides schoolwork. I was about seven years old and my family was camping in Northwest California.
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Center for Inspired Teaching is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that exists to ensure schools make the most of children's innate desire to learn. We do this by investing in teachers. Please visit our website to learn more about our philosophy, programs, and results.
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How can you tell if you're smart?
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When you were a student in school you probably measured your "smarts" like this:
- If you got your paper posted on a bulletin board, you could look and see it next to the work of other students.
- If you took a test you could ask around to see who got the highest grade.
- If you were working on an assignment, you could see who finished first.
- At least four times a year you could count on your report card to give you some indication of how well you were doing in class.
Even if it was "uncool" to be smart in junior and senior high, it was never cool to be dumb. And so, these indications of our "smarts" were very important to our sense of self, and to our vision for what we could do and be in the future.
Chances are good your students use the same tools to assess their own intelligence. But now that you're a teacher you have a much more complicated understanding of what it means to be smart.
Smarts aren't just the territory of learning how to do math quickly. And they aren't even the exclusive domain of academic subjects. Sure there are some students who learn the material faster than others. And there are those who excel when it comes to taking a test. But when you look at your class you can probably think of something that makes each and every student in there smart.
- One excels on the basketball court.
- One can make friends with anybody.
- One can draw anything you put in front of her.
- One has a sense of humor that regularly gets the whole class in hysterics.
Looked at in this way, you classroom is a veritable tapestry of brilliance. But if you were a student in your class, would it be clear to you that you're smart?
We're coming upon the testing season when conventional assessments of academic achievement abound, and students are likely to get frequent reminders of how "smart" they are according to these tools. Self-confidence cannot be disregarded when it comes to raising student achievement. For this reason it is important that every student be aware of his or her own capacity for genius.
What can you do to make them see how smart they can be?
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10 Ways to Show You Value Your Students
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This list of community-building strategies requires little more than your time. It is a great way to build the positive vibes in your classroom, and also includes several ways you can highlight the "smarts" of your kids.
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Resources for Teachers
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Student Self-Evaluation: What Research Says and What Practice ShowsIf you want to give students more control over their understating of their own academic achievement, you might want to build more self-evaluation into your assessment toolkit. This research article from the Center for Development and Learning offers a thorough description of what self-evaluation could look like in the classroom. 101 Tools for ToleranceIf our last Inspired Teacher grabbed your attention, consider this great resource to further your thinking about culturally responsive teaching. Students' View of Intelligence Can Help GradesDo your students have a fixed or growth mindset when it comes to intelligence? This article from NPR suggests that the way kids think about intelligence influences how they do in school. Saturday, February 28, 2009: American University Creating the Schools That We Need for the 21st Century: Keynote Presentation and Dialogue with Dr. Pedro Noguera
Mary Graydon Center Rooms 4 and 5
Registration and Breakfast 9:15-10:00 am
Program 10:15 am-12:15 pm Book Signing 12:15-1:00 pm Please RSVP by Monday, February 23: 202-885-3720 or educate@american.edu.
Sunday, March 1, 2009: Professor Ronald Takaki discusses a new edition of his book, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. 7:00 pm at Busboys & Poets, 2021 14th Street, NW.
U.S. Dept. of Education: Teaching Ambassador FellowshipThe U.S. Department of Education is accepting applications for the 2009-2010 Teaching Ambassador Fellowship program, which offers highly motivated, innovative public school teachers the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and experience to the national dialogue on public education. Deadline: March 16, 2009. The Jordan Fundamentals Grant Program recognizes outstanding teaching and instructional creativity in public secondary schools that serve economically disadvantaged students. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: public K-12 teachers in the U.S. Deadline: April 15, 2009.Ready Classroom ProjectDC Voice is initiating a new program to get teacher perspectives on instruction, professional development, personal efficacy, and empowerment and school climate. To participate: 202-986-8535 or RCP@dcvoice.org. | |
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