Students Aren't the Only Bullies In Schools

As future educators, we have read countless articles against bullying between students, never having thought that other teachers would be the source of such behavior. An article posted by the Huffington Post notes otherwise. Below is a link to a short video along with the article explaining what was said to Akian Chaifetz, son of Stuart Chaifetz, when he put a wire on his child before sending him to school.

Stuart Chaifetz, Father, Puts Wire On Son With Autism, Records Verbal Abuse From Teachers

Stuart Chaifetz also posted this 17-minute video on YouTube, explaining what happened to his son on this particular day, with actual audio recordings from the teachers' very inappropriate and hurtful conversations.

This is an extremely vile story about a few teachers who thought they could get away with inappropriate behavior in a classroom full of autistic boys, because they knew the boys could not relay the information back to their parents at the end of the day. Chaifetz, a concerned parent, wanted to figure out why exactly his son, who had never acted out before, was recently misbehaving, and acting violently. In his YouTube video, Chaifetz is clearly upset (and rightfully so) that people who were supposed to keep his son safe were, instead, verbally abusing him. It's a shame that teachers like this work in public school districts, but as future educators, we should take this as an example as to what NEVER to do in a classroom.

Robo-Readers Better Than Humans? Not So Fast...

According to Michael Winerip of the New York Times, "A recently released study has concluded that computers are capable of scoring essays on standardized tests as well as human beings do." Pearson graders can grade at most 30 writing samples in an hour, whereas e-Rater (an automated grader developed by the Educational Testing Service) can grade 16,000 in 20 seconds. Does this mean humans should be replaced by e-Rater?


Les Pereleman, a director of writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, doesn't think so. Mr. Pereleman, in between teaching undergraduates, has researched algorithms like e-Rater, and found many flaws and loops in their development. He noticed that essays that are simply more wordy (although not as well-written) will be graded with a higher score. Longer sentences, paragraphs, and sentences not starting with the words "and" and "or" will score higher. Also, an essay which uses more complex words, no matter in what context, will get a higher score than an essay which doesn't.


Looks like we humans will not be replaced by robots in the world of teaching and testing just yet.


Link to article: Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously

Facebook Isn't Yours to Keep, It's Also The District's

In a recent article on Yahoo! News by Tecca, a Grade school teacher's aide Kimberly Hester was fired for refusing to hand over the password to her Facebook account. A parent reported an image on the aide's page and brought the issue up the school district, prompting the investigation. While teachers have gotten into trouble for posts on Facebook before, Hester's case was different because she got fired for refusing to grant access to her Facebook account.

Many other school districts are asking their employees to hand over the access information to their Facebook accounts. I disagree with their decision to fire Hester and also for the other districts' decision to require access to their teachers' accounts. Teachers should, however, be very careful with what they decide to post on their Facebook pages. Although Hester's page was set to private and she was not friends with any of her students, a parent did find pictures that he/she found inappropriate, ultimately being the reason why Hester was let go.

Teach Me How to Study!

For one of our interactivities, we had to come up with a list of helpful pieces of technology to use in a math classroom. One of those technologies, however, could be used for just about any subject. The website called SchoolTube, is very similar to that of YouTube. Instead of  a plethora of videos of dogs doing funny tricks or kids laughing at jokes, this website provides entertaining videos authored by students and/or teachers which have some educational value to them. One video really caught my attention, set to the beat of the popular song "Teach Me How To Dougie", but instead is entitled "Teach Me How to Study". It's a very clever way of getting across to fellow students some tips on creating successful study habits, all set to a beat of a song. We remember the lyrics to songs because we enjoy listening to them, so applying that same attitude towards educational concepts can be very helpful and entertaining in a classroom setting. Authoring/listening to educationally sound songs can help students retain information they might otherwise forget if taught by way of lecture and note-taking.

Here is the link to the video, "Teach Me How to Study" uploaded by user MsDumas.. Enjoy watching!

Interactivity 5: NETS Standards

I chose to interview an 8^th grade science teacher in the Clifton School District. For the purpose of keeping her identity private, I will refer to this particular teacher as Ms. Smith during the remainder of this blog entry. Ms. Smith teaches Physical Science, consisting of Genetics, Chemistry, Biology, and Environmental sciences.

Ms. Smith was not familiar with the NETS standards until I presented them to her during our interview. Although she’s never seen them, however, she noticed that many of the standards NETS outlines are ideas she already incorporates into her class on a day-to-day basis. Ms. Smith frequently uses a SMART Board in her lessons, and tries to make her science classes as engaging for the students as possible with the help of the technology she has available in her classroom.

After looking at the Clifton School District’s website along with asking Ms. Smith about the NETS Standards, I did not find any signs of implementation of the technology standards thus far. Ms. Smith did let me know that many of the classrooms at the middle school where she works are equipped with a SMART Board, and all of the classrooms have at least six computers for the students and teachers to make use of.

I was not very surprised at Ms. Smith’s responses, because after going back to my lesson plan spreadsheet for Interactivity 4 and adding in the NETS-S standards, I noticed that a good lesson already includes many of the standards outlined by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Ms. Smith also noticed this was evident in her personal lessons. She added that although the teachers in Clifton public schools are not required to align their lessons according to NETS standards, they do have to somehow note in their plans (by a simple way of highlighting for example) when technology is being used. She also said that another reason for Clifton not beginning the implementation of the NETS standards could be due to the diversity of the town. Because many of the students are English Language Learners (ELL’s), the teachers are required to not only align their lessons with their specific content, but also Language Arts. Adding yet another set of standards might be considered overkill.

As a future educator, I might try to make my fellow colleagues aware of these standards by talking with them about the NETS standards. Not only are the standards fairly easy to follow and straightforward, but they could also ensure a greater interaction between the students and the technology available in schools. We have seen that children today learn to use computers before they can read, so I think it’s safe to say that they could greatly benefit from having lessons aligned with the NETS standards.

Socrative: A New Way of Assessing Students

Socrative, a way to "engage the class using any device," is a website I have recently learned about in one of my classes this semester. A virtual way to assess students' knowledge on any particular topic, socrative.com allows for an instructor to construct an assessment the class can take live, in class.

The assessments can be constructed in a multiple choice, true/false, and free-response format, so the possibilities are endless for assessing the students. During the actual testing process, the students have to sign in with a room number given to the instructor during the sign up process for the program (which is absolutely free!). The teacher can then choose between a student-paced test or a teacher-paced test. The student-paced test allows the students to move at their own pace and move through the questions as quickly as they wish, whereas the teacher-paced test stops the students after each question. The teacher-paced option can be especially good to check for understanding after each question has been answered by the students, in order to see what concepts the students still need to review.

Because the student response system allows for the students to use devices they are familiar with (i.e. a cell phone, laptop, or tablet) and use recreationally, this is a good way to show them that their device can be used for other, educationally rich activities. Also, because this is something I haven't seen done in many classes, I think it could be a way to get the students interested in the lesson, and interact with the material much more, since they are so comfortable with technology.

Not only can it be helpful and interesting to students; it can also be a great tool for teachers. "Socrative saves me 80 minutes per week in grading time," says Kristina Buenafe, a Boston Public High School Math Teacher. It's a great tool to save time while assessing the students and their knowledge on any material.