Learning: Innovation
Virtual Observation

New software makes it easy for educators to study each others' work.

To become a better teacher, you need to watch a lot of classrooms so you can see and analyze how a wide range of other people teach, says UCLA psychology professor and education researcher James Stigler. But in American schools, he says, that kind of professional development experience is often impossible to arrange.

Stigler thinks he's got a technological fix for that problem. He started a company called LessonLab, which produces software that lets teachers see, analyze, and discuss each others' lessons with relative ease. The software, released last year, is now being tried by several thousand teachers nationwide.

Teachers have videotaped lessons for a long time, but the LessonLab software has taken this to a new level. Because the lessons are digitized and time coded, teachers can talk about specific incidents and watch them again without spending time getting to the right place on a tape. The software lets a teacher-observer watch someone else's lesson after school or at home, make notes on specific incidents, and share those notes with other people, either remotely or face-to-face.

Although teachers can use the software at home, Stigler doesn't think it will replace face-to-face talks. But it can make those conversations more efficient, he believes, because participants can refer to parts of the lesson and immediately show people what they mean.

Stigler is quick to say his software is not a professional development program, but rather a tool, much like a word processing application that makes writing easier but doesn't do the work for you.

Stigler insists there's no single right way to teach. The right approach for one student may be wrong for another. So LessonLab is not trying to compile a set of exemplary lessons. Rather, the company is building a library that shows real world teaching in all its complexity.

"Most educational research is not relevant to the classroom," Stigler says. "Education researchers study things like general characteristics of how children learn. What teachers need is studies of specific curriculum and standards--how to teach Billy Goats Gruff to third graders so they learn what you want them to learn."

For More:
Visit www.lessonlab.com.

Foreign-Born Students Find a Voice

One teacher and some dedicated foreign-born students are publishing a newspaper to give voice--in English--to kids warming to a new land and language.

Silver International, in its 15th year, is produced three times a year by immigrant students at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, where its founder, Joe Bellino, heads the English to Speakers of Other Languages Department.

The key motivation for the kids is that their work will be read by people outside the class. It's real communication, not an exercise.

Bellino recalls a Salvadoran student who wrote the story of his escape from El Salvador. Its publication "really opened him," says Bellino. "He seemed like a different person, more outgoing."

Silver International's 12-person staff boasts kids from Ghana, Bolivia, China, Haiti, and more.

The paper also draws writing from other international students at Montgomery Blair, plus children at elementary and middle schools. "Second-language learners don't have many opportunities to get published," says Bellino.

Begun as an after-school club, the paper is now published by a journalism class.

"The bigger picture is what it does for readers," Bellino says. Someone will read a story in our paper and come wanting to tell his or her story.

The school prints 3,900 copies. Five hundred go to outside subscribers, including children in other countries.

For More:
Visit http://silverinternational.mbhs.edu or E-mail SilverInternational@mbhs.edu.

'Braille Is Beautiful'

Looking for ways to help your students understand the perspectives of those with disabilities? Braille Is Beautiful, a new program from the National Federation of the Blind, could be just the ticket.

Braille Is Beautiful is a flexible, hands-on program that comes complete with a Braille stylus and slate for kids to learn with. It aims to help sighted students in grades four through six understand not only Braille, but also the many capabilities and achievements of blind people.

Marc Maurer, the federation's president and who is himself blind, created the program to make blindness "less weird" to kids.

"I've used few materials that generate as much excitement," says Claudia Bosworth, who last year introduced Braille Is Beautiful to her 32 fifth graders at Fort Smallwood Elementary in Pasadena, Maryland. "My students all wanted their own slate and stylus. Several of the kids contacted the Nation-al Federation of the Blind on their own."

Bosworth especially appreciated the program's classroom video, Jake and the Secret Code.

In the video, ten-year-old Jake becomes separated from his mother while visiting the National Federation of the Blind. He wanders into the office of Mr. Chong, who puzzles him by doing lots of things Jake didn't think blind people could do.

Mr. Chong gives Jake a crash course in the "secret code" of Braille. He also clues Jake in on how to help his mother become more comfortable around blind people.

"Nothing is more fun than a secret code," says Bosworth.

She adds, "After using Braille Is Beautiful, I saw my students become more understanding of children in other areas as well, whether it was a disability or just a kid who wasn't as quick at a given subject."

Braille Is Beautiful includes five instructional units with a variety of learning formats including group discussions, interactive games, and applied projects. Parts of the program can be used together or alone.

"To me, blindness is not unusual," Maurer says. "It isn't that I forget it, but it's not a thing I think about much. But to many people, it's weird.

"Children can be cruel. If there is a noticeable difference in another child, it will be used against that kid--unless the difference has charm," says Maurer. "With Braille Is Beautiful, we're trying to take an isolating difference and make it into a charming difference."

For More:
Visit www.nfb.org or call 410/659-9314.

Covering Kids with Health Insurance

Marisa de le Garza travels the byways of her native Texas, spreading the good news of affordable health care for children. She works for Covering Kids, a group educating families about government health insurance programs.

What is the need?
About 8 million children have no health insurance. Most of these kids are eligible for coverage, if their parents only knew how to apply. CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Plan, covers moderate income families.

How can schools help?
Educators have credibility. I know a teacher who had many parents who couldn't afford glasses for their kids. She talked to them, and now those kids can see the board.

Is there a link between health insurance and academic success?
Studies show kids with insurance are better learners. They get care and recover from illness faster because their parents aren't reluctant to take them to the doctor.

For More:
Visit www.coveringkids.org or call 877/KIDS NOW (543-7669).

Hook Up with NEA Student Members

Need volunteers for a community outreach project at the library?

Want pro-teacher letters sent to the local newspaper?

Ask the education students in the NEA Student Program, which has launched an effort called "Hook Up" to connect its local chapters with other NEA affiliates.

Student Program Chair Christie Morrison says educators can "hook up" with NEA Student members who can help in their classrooms, with projects and on field trips.

"In a couple of years, you'll have active members, better prepared to be quality educators, stay in the profession, and be successful," says Morrison.

In return, she adds, Student members can benefit tremendously from contacts in the real world of education.

Morrison says Student members have read stories for NEA's Read Across America campaign in Texas, phone-banked during elections in Pennsylvania, helped rebuild a burned-out school in South Dakota, and joined in many other activities all across the country.

The NEA Student Program has affiliates at many schools of education and a membership of more than 50,000. Yet this represents only 5 percent of education students nationwide.

NEA student organizers note that it makes good sense to help the Student chapters become stronger. More than four-fifths of these members join their NEA affiliate in their first year of teaching, and a third go on to leadership positions in NEA.

For More:
Contact Christie Morrison at cmorrison@nea.org.