Women in Math, Science and Engineering

A couple of years ago I did an action research project as part of my Educational Leadership degree.  The focus was girls and mathematics achievment in the Middleton School District.  The results weren't great.  Our girls lag behind our boys and tend to show up less and less in advanced course work over their school careers. 

As I looked at what the research said about reversing this trend, one of the recommendations was to introduce girls to women who have found successful, engaging, and fufilling careers in the fields of science and mathematics.  So, here's a really cool one.  Check out this amazing structure!

This is the Bergisel ski jump in Austria.  You can either climb 455 steps to the top or take the funicular.  (What's a funicular?  More importantly, who skis DOWN this thing?  :-)) The top also has a panoramic view and a restaurant. Now that I'm up for. Want to know something else pretty cool?  It was built by this architect....

Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950.  She was the first woman to win a Pritzker Architecture Prize. "Her work experiments with new spatial concepts and encompasses all fields of design, ranging from urban spaces to products and furniture."  An amazing talent.  A pretty cool career to aspire to.

I hope you'll share this with your kids.

Angie

Remember....

I love when I'm reminded of good strategies that I seem to have dropped along the way.  Mrs. Bower, one of our student teachers, has been bringing an old strategy back to life for me.  She has been working alongside Mrs. Maxwell with our advanced 3rd grade readers at Middleton Heights Elementary.  Mrs. Bower has utilized the mentor texts (click here and scroll down to the WWII books) we have used in the past to build background knowledge about WWII before reading the book Snow Treasure.  Her twist has been to use these books to teach the kids the steps in the Reciprocal Teaching strategy. 

With each new book Mrs. Bower is using anchor charts to help the kids develop their predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing skills. 



Mrs. Bower used The Greatest Skating Race to introduce predicting.



The Cats in Kratinski Square was used to discuss questioning.

The Little Ships was the text for clarifying.



 It's been great fun to see the kids build these skills as well as their background knowledge. She has done a great job choosing which mentor text best fits each piece of the strategy and implementing these lessons during the "I do" and "We do" phases of instruction.  I'm looking forward to watching this investment pay off as the kids put all the parts of Reciprocal Teaching together and apply them to their reading of Snow Treasure.

Let me know if you are interested in a refresher on Reciprocal Teaching.  Mrs. Bower, Mrs. Maxwell and I have some resources we could send your way.

Angie

Implementing the Nonfiction CCSS

Earlier in the year I posted about a topic that I've spent sometime thinking about: kids thinking like disciplinarians.  This topic has intrigued me for a while now because it gets at the heart of curiosity, learning, reading and writing with a purpose and finding a life's passion.  When we teach kids, as best we can from a classroom setting, how historians, scientists, mathematicians and others inquire, we open up them up to the possibilities for their own lives...beyond money....beyond making a living....to find a calling and make a difference.  With computers and projects and other technology, we are able to bring more of this world to our students than ever before.  My fear is that these tools will become one more way to make kids passive learners.  I'm more interested in helping them learn to love the questioning and thinking that these folks do.  My inquiry as a teacher: "How do I help kids and teachers see the thinking of these professionals?"

Last week I read a great article by Zarnowski and Turkel entitled, "Nonfiction Literature that Highlights Inquiry:  How Real People Solve Real Problems."  In their article they highlight some of the recently published nonfiction for children that goes beyond sharing information.  These books offer us a trip with the researchers through their thinking, problems, collaborations and problem solving.  They call these books "the literature of inquiry."

"Subject matter learning is not merely about learning the stuff of disciplines, it is also about the processes and practices by which the stuff is produced." p. 31

I was pleased to see that they recommended a number of books that I've mentioned in the blog before and a few new ones.  Here's a few now on my Amazon wish list and will be purchased when the budget allows.  :-)  These books feature "people who are dedicated, enthusiastic, passionate learners...they cultivate puzzlement."  Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear our students described as these kinds of adults in 20 years!

Lastly, the authors suggest that as we explore these books about real people solving real problems with our students, that we keep anchoring back to these big questions:

• Who is doing the investigating?
• What is the problem?
• What is the process of investigation?
• What are the results?  Are they convincing?

One last article to read from the Harvard Graduate School of Education Newsletter on questioning. 

http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/507

Enjoy!

Angie