Thinking Outside the Box to Expand Special Education Programs

The coffee shop run by students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Edison, NJ averages a profit of $100 a week. A class designed for children with autism or multiple learning disabilities runs a coffee shop every Friday morning in the home economics classroom. The teachers enjoy stopping in the coffee shop during their free period, and the students look forward to Fridays when they get to work.

Thomas Macchiaverna, who came up with the coffee shop idea, created the program to provide his students with opportunities to learn math skills, develop business sense, and practice social interaction. The profits have been used for field trips and classroom celebrations, which has been especially helpful since the Edison district recently eliminated money for field trips.

Imagine Cup 2011

Registration for Microsoft’s 9th Imagine Cup
is now open. The competition is made up of passionate and creative young people that work to find solutions to our world’s social and environmental problems. This year a new program is added to the competition called “Imagine Cup Solve This”. The program will provide needs submitted by organizations that students will be challenged to solve creatively.

You can click here to see the winners of the Imagine Cup 2010. Below is a video for the 3rd place winner in the Digital Media category, Team Woolgathering.

Stroke of Insight

Jill Bolte Taylor is both a brain scientist and a former stroke patient. In the video below, she describes how the two hemispheres of the brain control different abilities and therefore act and respond in completely different ways. With the left side of her brain paralyzed by the stroke, Dr. Taylor was able to view the world with only the right side of the brain which changed the way she would normally perceive the world. Many people would describe a stroke to be a tragedy, but Dr. Taylor describes a beautiful experience that enabled her to see the magnificence of our world while feeling that she was full and perfect without being distracted by the self talk the left side of our brain controls.

She wrote a book about her experience titled Stroke of Insight, which I plan to read. I think you will find her to be a very engaging and passionate speaker. I wish she taught be science when I was younger.

I think this video would be great as an introduction or review when teaching about the brain. It is also great for anyone to see when trying to understand more about how our minds work.

Microsoft Certifications Earned at North Carolina High Schools

Next fall, North Carolina will be the first state to offer Microsoft computer training in every high school. Currently, about 30 high schools are using the Microsoft IT Academy —which is a “subscription-based membership program designed to help schools offer students and faculty learning solutions for IT skills training and certification as well as technology essentials for professionals.” The North Carolina students will have the opportunity to earn certification as a Microsoft Office Specialist or a Microsoft Certified Professional.

Even after graduating college with a degree in Computer Sciences, I know that many people spend their free time pursuing certifications such as these because they are either required in order to be hired by a certain company or they bump a person up to the next level of pay scale. While it would be ideal for students to have the chance to be certified with various types of software rather than just Microsoft, I think it is really cool that these students have the chance to leave HIGH SCHOOL with a certification that would actually be worth something in the real world with a real corporation that offers a real salary and benefits. I think this is the new direction for many technical schools serving students 18 years and younger.

Why Do I Have to Learn This..?

As we know, Americans are falling behind many of the other industrialized nations when it comes to our mathematical knowledge. Shorter schooldays and school years and more diverse populations of students are a couple of facts that may lead to our low scores in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subjects. There are many teachers and organizations that are dedicated to finding better ways to teach our students math, so that we can remain to be a competitive nation. Here are a couple of stories I have read about that I would like to share to you.

Audrey Cucci, a high school math teacher in Frankfort, New York, uses group work and various means of technology to create an interactive and collaborative classroom that gives students opportunities to work together and manipulate abstract math problems to find solutions and explain their work. You can click here to read about Cucci’s classroom here, or you can click here to view her lessons on SchoolTube. Cucci uses an interactive whiteboard and microphone to record each of her lessons.

“Why do I have to learn this?” If your students have this question for you during one of your math lessons, you may want to show them the careers that require a solid background in math. Texas Instruments and the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center have dedicated a portion of their Student Zone website to describing various STEM careers and the background it takes to succeed.

As we know, there is still a significant pay gap among men and women and more women than men are graduating with bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees, But…men still outnumber women in STEM careers which often offer generous salaries. Expanding Your Horizons Network is dedicated to motivating young women in science and math; AAUW Tech Trek is a math/science camp “designed to develop interest, excitement and self-confidence in young women who will enter eighth grade in the fall”; Singer and founder of Advancement of Women Now , Mary J. Blige, has partnered with NASA to encourage young women to pursue STEM career choices.