Susan Fitzell-Educational Consultant & Speaker

Comings and Goings – Two weeks of Co-teaching Coaching and Training

sfitzell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:02:06 +0000

Co-teaching Seminars This Week

Here in St. Louis (Clayton, actually). Checked in, shuttle driver took me to Whole foods – did groceries, going to polish my co-teaching presentation before bed. Tomorrow St. Louis, Tuesday: Springfield, MO, Wed: Kansas City, MO, Thurs: Minneapolis, MN, and Friday, FARGO!!!

Co-teaching Coaching Last Week

Last week I was working with Permian High School and Odessa High School in Odessa, TX. I love being in the classroom. Both high schools are making great gains in their co-teaching efforts. Not only did I get to work with some awesome teachers and administrators in Odessa, Texas, I attended a Permian High School Football ’send-off to the state championships’ bon-fire. I also attended an Odessa High Pep rally. They both made it to this past weekend championships in El Paso and they both won! Experiencing West Texas Football and West Texas friendly hospitality is truly delightful. The week flew by.

Resource for Working with Visual or Hearing Impaired Students

sfitzell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:30:51 +0000

Linda Lamirande of ESC 16 in Amarillo, Texas told us about the Disabled and Captioned Media Program, or DCMP. The program calls itself “a unique educational accessible media resource serving the United States and its territories.”

They provide a collection of free-loan accessible media, guidelines for educational description and captioning, and a variety of other services designed to support and improve the academic achievement of students who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind.

Best of all, its FREE!

Dropout Prevention Strategies

sfitzell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:29:18 +0000

In the current economic environment, dropout rates tend to rise and we, as teachers, struggle to find ways help our students succeed. The issue of students dropping out of school continues to be a problem for schools, society, and our students.

A practice guide is available from the Institute for Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, titled “Dropout Prevention (September 2008).” The intention of the publication is to help educators develop effective dropout prevention strategies.

This publication is a useful addition to the growing research on the dropout issue and how school systems and education advocates can prevent students from dropping out.

Personal Safety: What are you doing about it?

sfitzell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:21:05 +0000

Children and Personal Safety: My Passion

I have been teaching martial arts to children for years. At one time, I felt compelled to write an article titled, “Girls do Ballet and Boys do Karate” because of my frustration with the stereotype pervading children’s activities. Both girls and boys need self-defense skills. The reality is, however, that martial arts and self-defense are still not given enough credence by the general population. Martial arts schools continually lose students to other sports (or video games).

Then there are those that believe you can take a one night workshop and learn to defend yourself. All those quickie courses do is give people a false sense of security. It takes practice and repetition to learn self-defense well enough to use it in an attack.

Both my children took martial arts from Kindergarten through High School. They weren’t given another option. I realize that they could still get attacked, but I know that as their mother, I did the best that I could to make sure they had self-defense skills, understood what message body language sends to others and know all that you say in the video above. I pray they never need to use those skills, but I know they have them just in case.

A colleague of mine, Robert Siciliano, speaks with passion about a
topic I, also, am passionate about.

Identity Theft Expert Speaker Protection Prevention Resource Blog » Once a Predator Always a Predato

Source: realtysecurity.com

Once a Predator Always a Predator

Posted on November 2nd, 2009 by Robert Siciliano

Robert Siciliano Personal Security Expert

A necessary diversion from my daily IT security/Identity theft rants.

So what happens when a convicted rapist lures a 21-year-old woman to his bedroom in 1989, then spends 15 years in jail and then gets a free pass in 2005? He does it again. Why? Because that’s normal. It’s not OK, but it’s normal. Its his nature. A psychologist said to me years ago, “You would be amazed at how many levels of normal there are”. Read more...

Offering Praise to Middle School Students

sfitzell — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:09:20 +0000

In my seminars, I often talk about the special difficulties faced by middle school students and the issues that middle school teachers must be aware of and deal with. As an advocate of positive discipline, I appreciated Shaun Martin’s thoughts on offering specific praise to our middle school students.

Martin, a history teacher in Baltimore Maryland, explains that general praise like, “Good job!” has very little meaning for students of middle school age. Instead, teachers should offer praise that is meaningful to students. Specific praise such as, “You showed your work on number three perfectly!” and “Awesome work! You punctuated every sentence correctly.” offer students precise information and give value to the praise.

To read Shaun’s complete article, visit http://classroom-management-tips.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_praise_students_in_middle_school#ixzz0Ejt9hoNr&A .

Free Reading Resources

sfitzell — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:53:32 +0000

Every teacher is involved with increasing fluency and reading skills in their students. Reading A-Z is a commercial website that offers downloadable and printable books, lessons, and other resources in support of a variety of learning styles and teaching approaches.

They also offer a selection of over 30 books and resources that teachers can download for free! Just click on the logo and enter your email address to view and download these free resources. Enjoy!

Jigsaw Learning

sfitzell — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:42:03 +0000

I recently suggested that a colleague use a Jigsaw approach to cover reading material with his college students. After hearing about how successful the strategy was for him, I realized that the Jigsaw is one of those easy and effective teaching strategies that is also vastly under utilized.

While I do talk about the Jigsaw in some of my seminars, and I train the teachers I consult with to use it, I don’t talk about it in great detail. There are a variety of print and online resources that discuss this teaching strategy, but the clearest and most comprehensive, in my opinion, is The Jigsaw Classroom, a website devoted entirely to the use and implementation of the Jigsaw. Take a look and add this great strategy to your teaching tool box.

Art Teachers Validate the Value of Doodling

sfitzell — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:40:00 +0000

Art teachers Ondre Pettingill and Guy Wymore, from Rockwell Charter High School, talk about the value of technology tools like the Elmo projector. They also validate the value of doodling and drawing to focus attention when Ondre shows off his drawing of me, done during the morning of our seminar. I asked Ondre if it helped him to focus on my presentation because he was able to draw while listening and he said, “Yes!”

I love it when teachers in my seminars are more comfortable because they have ‘focus tools’ on the table that I’ve encouraged them to use. When teachers (and students) are comfortable in their environment achievement goes up!

Using Sequence Strips for Recall

sfitzell — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:58:46 +0000

Rita Bowers, a teacher at Ranches Academy in Eagle Mountain Utah enjoyed the sequence strip idea that I shared so much that she agreed to tell us what she liked about it and how she intends to use it in her classroom.

I’ve been using sequence strips with students for years. When I used to do cognitive testing for students who were either up for a re-evaluation or referral to special education, I noticed that many students struggled with the sequencing subtests. Given that analytical thinking – analysis, synthesis, understanding of cause and effect, order of operations, etc. requires that students remember sequential information, I looked for ways to make ’sequences’ as concrete as possible as well as appropriate for the high school classroom.

I purchased adding machine tape at a discount store, brought in markers and had students draw pictures on the adding machine in sequential order (order in the text, order in the cycle, order in the steps to solve the problem). Then I had students label the sequence. We used color, mnemonics, chunking, etc. to make the information stand out even more. I’m an advocate for layering strategies – rather than use just one use many at the same time.

The strategy was successful for many students. It, also, proved to be a wonderful homework activity. Students enjoyed them much more than doing a worksheet and increased recall and motivation through the assignment.

Nineteen examples of good writing advice gone bad

sfitzell — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:36:29 +0000

THE GARBLED GRAMMARIAN SAYS …

1. Beware of run-on sentences they are hard to read anyway they confuse people break your ideas up into separate units that can stand alone.

2. Spoken or text-messaged English, has, like, different standards from formal written English, but, like, OMG, u c a lot of ppl 2day who 4get that.

3. Learn too spell it write even tho ewe are use sing a comp pewter; spell-check may knot cache every miss steak ewe make.

4. Your verbs has to agree with their subjects.

5. Step up to the plate and tackle the problem head-on: avoid mixed metaphors.

6. The passive voice should only rarely be used. In most cases, it must be avoided. Writers must be reminded of this rule at every opportunity.

7. Employ the semicolon intelligently, always use it to replace a missing conjunction; and never use it where the conjunction is already there; but don’t use it too much.

8. Sentence fragments. Bad idea. Usually.

9. Eschew obfuscation.

10. Eliminate redundant repetitions that say the same thing more than once.

11. Ask yourself: Did you accidentally any words out or

add add any that don’t belong?

12. Anyways, irregardless of your audience, you lose alot of credibility when you use words that don’t exist.

13. Editing carefully, dangling participles must be revised out of every sentence in which they appear.

14. A person who uses a singular verb with a plural pronoun deserves to have their head examined.

15. “Writers who ‘foolishly’ and “inconsistently” use ‘quotation “marks’” for “emphasis,” rather than to attribute quoted text to a specific source, inevitably

confuse their ‘readers.” ‘ “”"

16. i predict that your Capitalization mistakes Will come back to Haunt you.

17. Punctuation problems too may leave your reader confused

XVII. When creating a numbered list of items, number each item properly and consistently.

19. Having saved the best for last, I definitely don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but it’s a foregone conclusion that you must look before you leap when writing, which means avoiding cliches as though your life depended on it.

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