Posts Tagged ‘assessment’
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Happy 2010! January is always a time for resolutions and my five-year-old has made hers… “to learn to read really well and to work without distractions.” In honor of her very admirable goals (she is only five after all), I am going to dedicate the next few blogs to the topic of reading. I suspect that many of the students that you have out there have a strong internal desire to be good at reading. As an Educational Consultant here in San Diego, much of the work that I do is to support education that will foster excellent reading strategies and skills.
This is a preview of
Ready to Read Part I: What makes a child love to read?
.
Read the full post (1016 words, 2 images, estimated 4:04 mins reading time)
Tags: assessment, assessment design, assessment design california, assessment design la jolla, Betsy Ray, Betsy's Wedding, Betsy-Tacy, blogs, consulting, curriculum, curriculum design, education, educational blogs, Educational consulting, educational training, Harry Potter, Maud Hart Lovelace, Scholastic Corporation
Posted in Think Tank | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
I am always fascinated when researchers discover something new about the way humans learn. I was especially interested in an article published in the New York Times yesterday, outlining new insights into math development in preschoolers. The research shows that humans are born with a simple “number instinct”–that is even at a young age, children can distinguish between “more and less” concepts easily. Infants can even distinguish between one and two, even to three in some cases. What research is showing is that with experiences in linking physical quantities with higher abstract symbolic representation “7″ and the word (seven), the brain of preschooler can master these concepts. This numeric “trinity” is critical for mathematics success in kindergarten. Furthermore, students must cement these concepts so that they become automatic in order to find rapid success with addition and subtraction. Imagine the frustration of a 5-6 year old in trying to figure out a simple addition/subtraction problem without this type of rapid connection. When you think about it, is actually not that surprising that preschoolers can deal with larger numbers. After all, Sesame Street has spent thirty years building sound/letter relationship understanding in preschoolers. It is not a leap to see how a sound and abstract letter representation is close to a number/quantity relationship outlined above.
Tags: assessment, assessment design, assessment design california, assessment design la jolla, Cognitively Guided Instruction, consulting, curriculum design, differentiated instruction, education, educational blogs, Educational consulting, educational training, Everyday Mathematics, instructional seminars, learning, Math, Mathematics, New York Times, Sesame Street, University of Chicago
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Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
This afternoon Edstrom Educational Consulting will be providing a mini instructional seminar at a wonderful progressive school, The Children’s School, along with the incredibly talented writer and journalist, Catherine Ivey (Stanford-educated, no less) on Effective Communication in Writing. When preparing this seminar, I kept thinking about my own experiences as a classroom teacher, navigating the sometimes shark-infested waters of providing feedback about students to their parents.
Tags: assessment, assessment design, assessment design california, assessment design la jolla, Cognitively Guided Instruction, consulting, curriculum design, differentiated instruction, education, educational blogs, Educational consulting, educational training, Everyday Mathematics, instructional seminars, learning, Math, Mathematics, New York Times, Sesame Street, University of Chicago
Posted in Parent/Educator Partnership | No Comments »
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
In fifth grade, my class studied the Civil War and I wrote a speech about Sherman’s March. In my speech I was asked to imagine myself as a first-hand witness and to speak as if I had lived through through the Siege of Atlanta. I imagined myself as a fiesty and proud Southern woman, wearing a fabulous antebellum dress and spoke with passion about the death of my beautiful city and home. As long as I live, I will never forget what I learned about that terrible time in United States history. I vividly remember everything about giving that speech, from the details about how Sherman laid siege on Atlanta while crushing the spirit of the Confederacy, to the shirt I was wearing that day. In fact, when as part of a history class syllabus at Wellesley College a decade later I was reading primary sources of woman in the South during this time, I felt like an “expert.” I truly understood the causes and effects of Sherman’s March on the greater Civil War conflict. I could relate the impact to other battles within the Civil War and other wars. I could understand how geography, politics, religion, slavery, etc. played a role in the conflict. The learning I had brought with me from the time I was ten years old was absolutely applicable and ingrained in my brain.
Tags: assessment, assessment design, differentiated instruction, differentiated learning, durable learning, Educational consulting, enduring understandings, instructional seminars, Understanding by Design
Posted in Seminars, Think Tank | 1 Comment »
