This week in education news, students attending high-poverty schools have fewer opportunities than students attending low-poverty schools; K-12 school spending got caught up in budget standoffs this year; the number of girls taking AP computer-science exams more than doubled; writing improves all learning; and a South Dakota science teacher selected as a national ambassador.

The Role Of Science In Boosting Outcomes For English Learners

All too often, English learners (ELs) do not receive the same educational opportunities as their non-EL peers. This pattern manifests in a variety of ways, including the disparate levels of access that ELs have to high-quality science instruction. Indeed, a recent Education Trust-West study of California school districts found that ELs are significantly underrepresented in advanced science courses throughout the state. The report also notes that ELs consistently score lower than the rest of the population on statewide science assessments at all grade levels. Click here to read the article featured in New America.

‘STEM Deserts’ In The Poorest Schools: How Can We Fix Them?

Students attending high-poverty schools tend to have fewer science materials, fewer opportunities, and less access to the most rigorous mathematics classes, like calculus and physics, than students attending low-poverty schools, a new analysis points out. That means that they’re less likely to encounter real-world problem-solving that characterizes advanced work in those fields—as well as the most rigorous content that serves as a benchmark for beginning college majors or minors in those fields. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

In My Classroom, Students Are The Teachers—Here’s Why It Works

We have all heard the words, “don’t give up!” It is a constant reminder to keep going, to persevere in tough situations and when things aren’t working well, try again. Frequently, students in my programming class get frustrated when working on a project and debugging code. As a teacher, how do you keep them inspired to work through their challenges? Click here to read the article featured in eSchool News.

K-12 Funding Entangled in States’ Budget Drama

K-12 school spending this year got caught up in budget standoffs that, in some states, led to brief government shutdowns. And the drama isn’t over yet. Though most state legislatures now have wrapped up business for the year, several this summer still are trying to design new revenue models, K-12 funding formulas, and—in the case of Kansas and Washington—awaiting court approval to assure their new school spending plans are constitutional. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Number Of Girls Taking AP Computer-Science Exam More Than Doubles

More girls than ever took an AP computer-science exam this year, Seattle nonprofit Code.org announced Tuesday, calling the results “incredible.”Code.org crunched the numbers from the AP College Board, which shows that 29,708 girls in the U.S. took an Advanced Placement computer science exam this year, more than double the number from 2016. Girls made up about 27 percent of the 111,262 students who took an AP computer-science exam in 2017. Click here to read the article featured in the Seattle Times.

If We Fix Student Teaching, Will We Fix Teacher Shortages?

The president of the National Council on Teacher Quality presented what she sarcastically called a “radical” solution for both improving the pipeline of new teachers and filling specific teacher shortages: “Fix student teaching.” “There’s a misalignment between what’s needed [in districts] and what’s provided out of higher ed,” said Kate Walsh, speaking July 17 at an annual gathering of state teachers of the year.” Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Why Writing Doesn’t Just Improve Learning, It Improves All Learning-Including STEM

Writing is used to assess student learning more often than it is used to facilitate learning. We talk about writing as a product for assessment, a subject where paragraphs and commas are taught, or a skill that one either has developed or lacks. Rarely do we hear people, even teachers, discuss writing as a process for learning. Click here to read the article featured in eSchool News.

How States Can Boost Science Learning, Thanks To ESSA

Science education advocates are among those cheering the new federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act: It’s an opportunity to get science on the radar screen in a way they couldn’t under ESSA’s predecessor. The former law didn’t count science tests towards anything, thereby relegating the subject, in many advocates’ eyes, to second-tier status. But under ESSA, states have a lot more flexibility to emphasize science in particular, and more generally, content in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

MHS Science Teacher Selected As National Ambassador

A Mitchell educator has been selected as a national ambassador, tasked with the goal of empowering science teachers across the country. Julie Olson was selected as one of 10 math and science teacher leaders to serve as a 2017 STEM Teacher Ambassador, according to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. Click here to read the article featured in The Daily Republic.

Local Teacher Tapped As STEM Teacher Ambassador

A Williamsville science teacher has been named as a national 2017 STEM Teacher Ambassador. WBFO’s senior reporter Eileen Buckley says the middle school teacher is one of ten math and science teachers selected nationwide. “It’s important that teachers are at the table – that as teachers our opinions are heard,” said Kenneth Huff, science teacher at Mill Middle School in Williamsville. Click here to listen to the segment featured on WBFO.

The Power of Story In The Classroom

There is something incredibly compelling about a well-told story. In fact, it is one of the most powerful tools we possess. For most of human history, oral stories were the primary way that knowledge and tradition were passed down through generations. But the modern classroom is often devoid of stories. Information is most often delivered through bland lectures and textbooks, only to be discarded. Click here to read the article featured in Education Week.

Stay tuned for next week’s top education news stories.

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July has brought my happy place (where the worlds of early childhood education and science education overlap) to my mailbox in the form of the 2017 summer journals from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC): Science and Children and Young Children. Both issues of these journals focus on math and the resources are such good reading in preparation for teaching! NAEYC’s Teaching Young Children (TYC) also has resources about early math. 

A friend who is a former early childhood educator was telling me about her grandchild, sharing how smart he is because at 2 years old he can count to 25. Knowing her and her daughters, I have no doubt her grandchild will grow up to be a deep thinker, capable of many achievements and contributions to society but she and I both know his ability to recite numbers in order does not reveal the depth of his understanding of the meaning of numbers.

When parents, grandparents, and other educators share their excitement about children’s achievements we can cheer and offer resources that support both the children’s learning and the adult’s learning about how children learn. I might say, “Wow, counting to 25! Here are some resources on early math development you may enjoy or already know about.”

I’m using these resources to help me understand what children may know and be able to do at ages of 2-5. Add your favorite resources in a comment to help me learn more.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ (NCTM) October 2013 position statement, “Mathematics in Early Childhood Learning” states, “The big ideas in mathematics must include mathematical experiences that incorporate mathematics content in areas such as number and operations, geometry, algebraic reasoning, and measurement,” and, “Early childhood educators should actively introduce mathematical concepts, methods, and language through a variety of appropriate experiences and research-based teaching strategies.”

The NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics has both content and process standards, defined in grade bands beginning with PreK-2. For example, part of the preK-2 expectations in content standard “Number and Operations” states, “In pre-K through grade 2 each and every student should- count with understanding and recognize “how many” in sets of objects.” And a PreK-2 expectation in content standard “Understand patterns, relations, and functions” states, “In pre-K through grade 2 each and every student should– sort, classify, and order objects by size, number, and other properties; 

Playing games is a time-tested and fun way to include math skill building in early childhood programs. 

Regents’ Center for Early Developmental Education’s Games page, developed in collaboration with Dr. Constance Kamii of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Head Start and the Common Core Standards are listed for each game, with clear photos and instructions and illustrations to download. 

Next Generation Preschool Math, a project of Education Development Center’s (EDC) Center for Children and Technology, SRI International, and First 8 Studios at WGBH led to the development of a curriculum that includes eight tablet apps that are games that can be played individually or collaboratively and classroom activities. A teacher’s guide (http://first8studios.org/gracieandfriends/guide/) includes “The Basics” (defining the units subitizing and equipartition and explaining why they are important) and lesson plans for engaging children with these concepts through both digital and traditional classroom activities.

EDC’s Games for Young Mathematicians project researches the use of games to foster early mathematical learning in preschool settings. See their list of suggestions for published math picture books. 

The Erikson Institute Early Math Collaborative’s video series, Focus on Play, illustrates how educator care givers can help infants and toddlers explore precursor concepts of math, “concepts that anchor a child’s mathematical thinking and are essential for the growth of further mathematics.” See descriptions of the “Big Ideas of Early Mathematics” from The Early Math Collaborative’s book, Big Ideas of Early Mathematics and follow the links to learn more about each idea in written descriptions and Focus on the Child video clips from one-on-one interviews with individual children that reveal children’s thinking. It’s interesting to see how, after asking a question, the teachers and researchers wait for a relatively long time for children to answer.

Dr. Doug Clements and Dr. Julie Sarama, professors at the University of Denver, shared their work in a free webinar, “The Path for Math in Early Childhood: The Learning Trajectories Perspective” (June 15, 2016 Early Childhood Investigations). These learning trajectories include three components: “the mathematical goals, developmental progressions of children’s learning, and educational activities and teaching strategies (based on finding the mathematics in, and developing mathematics from, children’s everyday activity).” Read more of their work, “Math in the Early Years: A Strong Predictor for Later School Success,” in The Education of the States’ October 2013 newsletter. http://www.earlychildhoodwebinars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Math-in-the-Early-Years.pdf 

Will you add to the number of resources listed here? What early math resource makes sense to you?