Looking for Lincoln #2

Teachers are always looking for free resources! Celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth this February 2009 with the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission’s free classroom poster! The front side, suitable for classroom display, is a portrait of Lincoln, while the reverse contains resources for educators, offering suggestions for incorporating Lincoln’s legacy into the classroom. You can request the poster by calling 202-707-6998 or on their website. Act quickly; supplies are limited.

If you really want to mark the Lincoln bicentennial in a big way, you can sign your school up as a Lincoln Legacy Bicentennial School.

It looks like there is to be a National Teach-In on February 12, 2009. I’ll see what else I can dig up on this.



- Karen

Guest Blog Part 3 by Karen Regina

Once I had categories set, it occurred to me that a jigsaw would be a good way to have students work with the information. But that implied a task for groups to do. I had come across the historical head strategy from a master teacher, James Percoco, whose work I was familiar with. (I attended one of his workshops at a National Council for History Education conference one year and use his books in classes I teach for pre-service social studies teachers at UC). Creating historical heads is a good way for students to analyze and synthesize information about a historical figure. And since all the information students use to do this task come from the Internet, there are elements of WebQuests incorporated also.
So that’s how I developed this lesson. I tend not to begin such projects with a preconceived notion. Rather, I explore what’s out there and let ideas unfold till something I like takes shape. It was an apt time to work on this project, with the 2008 election season at its peak, since Taft was elected 100 years ago. I noticed some changes and parallels between now and then. For example, in Taft’s day, there were no primaries and the candidate did not attend the convention. Rather Taft was notified of his nomination at home by a committee. Today’s electorate worried a bit about McCain’s health, while Taft was elected with several health problems. I’m sure you’ll be able to make more connections between the two elections. I hope you like the using the lesson.

Karen's lesson can be found at www.cetconnect.org/taft
Coming soon: Video on William Howard Taft featuring Ray Henderson, Chief of Interpretation at the William Howard Taft National Historic Site, Judge Mark A. Painter, author of a biography of the president, and Dan Hurley, local historian who curated the exhibits at the Taft National Historical Site.

Guest Blog Part 2 by Karen Regina

More on Writing a Lesson about William Howard Taft

Next I turned to a couple of standard American History textbooks. Taft didn’t get much coverage in them. The texts mostly focused on Taft’s relationship with Teddy Roosevelt and how the two had a falling out, which led to Taft’s failure to be re-elected in 1912. There was a lot about Progressive politics then too. So I decided I would focus on information about Taft in my lesson that the texts didn’t address.

So then I turned to the Internet. Soon I had dozens of sites bookmarked and had learned some fascinating new things. I hadn’t known that Taft’s wife played a major role in getting the now-famous cherry trees first planted in Washington, DC. And that it was she who really wanted Taft to be President, while he himself wasn’t too keen on the idea; his goal was to be Chief Justice. On a medical site, I read about Taft’s health problems, which included sleep apnea, a condition historians and doctors have “diagnosed” in retrospect. It seems Taft was often lethargic in the early part of the day and often needed to nap, evidence now seen that he wasn’t getting restful sleep at night because of apnea.

After hours of scouring the Internet, I had accumulated lots of good stuff. Now I needed to figure out what to do with it, since there were so many disparate topics. How could I make it all fit together? I decided to create categories and see if I could fit most of the information into them. I settled on five categories, based on periods in Taft’s life, and proceeded to lay out the pages on a table. (I had printed key pages from each website because, hey, I’m one of those people who still like to work with hard copy!)

Check by next week for Part 3

Looking for Lincoln

Having recently completed a lesson about William Howard Taft for CET, I’m now working on a lesson about President Abraham Lincoln for the station. This will coincide with a new PBS series called Looking for Lincoln coming in February 2009 to mark the bicentennial of his birth.

So now my antenna is up for anything Lincoln-related. Have you ever noticed that when you begin to show interest in a subject, all of a sudden information about it begins to pop up everywhere on your radar screen? That’s certainly been my experience these last couple weeks in regards to Lincoln information. First, I saw a lot of discussion in the news about President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for Cabinet heads, with many commenting that he seems to be modeling Lincoln’s notion of a “Team of Rivals” to shape his Cabinet. Obama appears to be a big fan of Lincoln, not surprising since both have political roots in Illinois. Soon after, I pull the November 24 issue of Newsweek from my mailbox to see Lincoln and Obama on the cover with the line that Obama is “channeling the 16th President.” Interesting premise, I wonder if I can work any of that into a lesson? Next, my periodic online newsletter from the Gilder Lehrman Institute popped up in my email. Want to guess what the featured document of the month was? The Gettysburg Address. Then I see a flyer about the American Bar Association’s Law Day program for May 1, 2009. No surprise. Its theme is A Legacy of Liberty: Celebrating Lincoln’s Bicentennial.

So it looks like this Lincoln bicentennial is going to be big. The CET staff tells me the PBS series is to be based in large part on a new book, Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon. So I checked it out of the library. Looks like great stuff in it, in short easy-to-read chunks. I also learned of another pertinent book, Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President. What a cool title!

I’m on a roll!

- Karen Regina

Guest Blog Part 1 by Karen Regina

Karen Regina has a broad background in social studies education as a classroom teacher at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, museum educator at the Cincinnati History Museum and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and as a current faculty member in the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services at the University of Cincinnati. She earned a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction at UC and subsequently authored a variety of curriculum materials, including several online WebQuests and an elementary textbook, Cincinnati: An Urban History. She contributed several lessons to CET’s Safe Passage project.




Writing a Lesson about William Howard Taft




When I was invited to write a lesson about William Howard Taft for CET’s website, I wasn’t clear about what kind of lesson to create. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Taft, so I took this as an opportunity to learn more about him. My first step was to review the Ohio Academic Content Standards for Social Studies to see what the state expected students to learn about Taft. I was surprised to find that Taft’s name was nowhere to be found, considering that he was a President from Ohio.

I recalled that years ago, when I was on staff at the Cincinnati Historical Society, I had chosen primary source documents from their collections for inclusion in the publication Cincinnati: An Urban History Sourcebook. So I turned to those pages first. There I found items about Taft’s 1908 campaign and inauguration particularly as they related to his hometown of Cincinnati. Making connections to Cincinnati would be a good idea, I thought.

Karen Regina

Come Back to CET Teach next week to learn about Karen's research process for creating a lesson on William Howard Taft.

American Education Week

This is the 87th annual American Education Week (AEW). AEW shines the spotlight on the importance of providing every child a quality public education all the way from kindergarten through college and the need for all stakeholders to contribute toward that goal. First started in 1921, it was an effort to raise America’s literacy rates after World War I.

Each day focuses on another area of importance:
Monday, November 17: Open House Day. From national commemorations to local community events, millions of Americans will celebrate public education nationwide.
Tuesday, November 18: Parents Day. Schools will invite parents into the classroom for a hands-on experience of what the day is like for their child.
Wednesday, November 19: Education Support Professionals Day. Individuals who provide invaluable services to schools are recognized for their outstanding work.
Thursday, November 20: Educator for a Day. Community leaders will be invited to serve as educators to get a glimpse at a day in the life of a school employee.
Friday, November 21: Substitute Educators Day. This day honors the educators who are called upon to replace regularly employed teachers.

More information and related resources are available. The National Education Association provides an online toolkit to help plan recognition events. Education World lists many potential activities that can be done in your school. Your local and state school leaders may have additional information and activities available now.

- Diane

Eat Smart for a Great Start

“Be sure to eat a good breakfast.” “Have a piece of fruit with your lunch.” "Finish your milk before you leave the table.” How often as kids did we hear our parents reminding us of the importance of good nutrition? How many of us find ourselves repeating those same reminders to our own children?

PBS KIDS and Produce for Kids® (PFK) have joined forces on an online initiative to promote healthy eating and smart food choices through the numerous benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. Launched in 2007, Eat Smart for a Great Start encourages kids to take their own personal steps towards living healthier lifestyles. The website includes a healthy eating page that includes games, fitness challenges and activities for kids. PBS Parents features an extensive area that includes activities and information on how parents can help their children build healthy eating habits such as:

· Parent Helpers that provide parents with strategies, activities and creative ways to encourage kids to eat healthy foods and make eating healthy foods fun;
· An article on “Picky Eaters” that provides parents with advice on how they can encourage even the pickiest eaters to eat healthy foods;
· Recipes using fruits and vegetables from children’s favorite PBS KIDS programs;
· Engaging activities that kids can play at the grocery store to make them aware of the healthy options around them as well as help them build math and literacy skills.

While these resources are aimed primarily at parents, they also have many uses in the elementary classroom. Check out these free resources soon.

- Diane

Access, Analyze and Act

This has been an exciting and ground breaking election season and the teachable moments for your classroom aren’t over yet. PBS has created an incredible collection of online resources for your classroom that will help your students access, analyze and act using the power of social media. The Access, Analyze and Act resources provide you with the tools that will engage your students’ interest in the election process and guide them in using social media to actively explore and comment on what they see happening all around them. Along they way, they will develop and sharpen critical information and media literacy skills.

The resources and tools within Access, Analyze and Act were developed for use all across the grade bands. While the vast majority of these students can’t yet participate in the voting process, it is never too early to begin teaching them how to be actively engaged in the civic process. Visit Access, Analyze and Act to learn more.

- Diane

Reading Rainbow lives on

“Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high
Take a look, it's in a book - Reading Rainbow.”

These lyrics from the theme song of the long-running PBS program Reading Rainbow are bright reminders of the joy of reading to millions of us who have watched the program over the years. Each program, hosted by LeVar Burton, introduces children to a wonderful story in a book and then connects it to real-life experiences for children.

Teachers have used this program for years to help get their students excited about reading. To assist teachers, Reading Rainbow provides them with high-quality lesson plans and other instructional resources. Reading Rainbow can be found each weekday on Time Warner Cable channel 17 at 12:30pm.

- Diane

Education under our next president

There are issues aplenty to judge our presidential candidates on in these waning days of the 2008 election season. The economy, energy, and experience are topics that you often hear the pundits discussing. But what about the other big “E” topic? Where do the candidates stand on education?

Like many educators around the country, I want to know how the candidates plan to support teachers and students with adequate funding. I want to know how they will allocate resources to failing schools without shortchanging successful schools. I want to know how they will keep highly qualified teachers in the classroom and remove ineffective teachers. I want to know how they will encourage schools to teach 21st Century Skills so our students can complete in this increasingly global workplace.

There are many places to learn more. The National Education Association, Edutopia, and of course, McCain’s and Obama’s own websites are just a few.

Where We Stand re-airs tomorrow night

Because most of our local viewers were without power during the original broadcast back on September 15th, Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21st Century, will re-air this Friday night at 10pm.

As mentioned in Diane's entry a few weeks back, this documentary features Cincinnati Public School's Pleasant Hills Academy. You can also view an interview with CPS leaders here.


-Brian

Constitution Day

In 2004, a law was passed that proclaimed each September 17 as Constitution Day, a day to remember the legacy of the brave souls who originally signed the U.S. Constitution as well as instill in our young people an appreciation for the rights and responsibilities that U.S. citizenship brings. As an educational institution, CET is obliged to provide programming on the history of the Constitution. Nick Clooney recorded a brief video for CETconnect.org that includes a reading of the Preamble to the Constitution. The National Endowment for the Humanities has created a great website with many online resources. A simple internet search will undoubtedly turn up more.

Where We Stand in Cincinnati

Ohio schools were the focus of a national documentary broadcast by CET on September 15. WHERE WE STAND takes a look at the challenges faced by today's schools and how some of those forward-thinking schools are creating innovative approaches to meet those challenges. Pleasant Hill Academy, a Cincinnati Public School, was one of the four schools featured in the documentary. CET collaborated with CPS staff to take a more detailed look at how these leaders in our local educational community are using teacher-led professional development to put students and teachers first. Take a look at the video and celebrate the good things happening for kids in our community.

Round up those art projects!

We know it's only been a week (or two, maybe) into the new school year for most of the teachers out there, but we have an exciting opportunity to pass along to your students! Whether you're an art teacher or not, let your students know about CET's Create-A-Fest, an annual art show where kindergarten through eighth graders can enter their best drawings, paintings and sculptures to be judged by a panel of local artists. The entries are displayed in the lobby at CET during the month of October, and all entrants are invited to a special reception on November 2.

This is a great way for young, talented art students to show off their best work! And don't forget to tell them, deadline for submissions is September 24.

For more information, including a complete list of rules, visit the Create-A-Fest Web site. We look forward to seeing your students' talent!

-Rachel

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! New school year that is. Some folks look forward to January 1 as the day to make a change or a fresh start. But not teachers. A teacher’s new year starts on the first day of school. Instead of a fresh new collection of 365 days, the first day of school brings 30 fresh new faces into his or her life. 30 new children who will become their surrogate children for the next nine months. 30 sets of families who trust the teacher to take their child on a journey to learn something new every day. 30 personalities that will often be a joy and occasionally a challenge.

Most of you have been back in the classroom for a week or so now getting to know your 30 or more new partners in learning. Our job here at CET is to help you all along on that journey. Please visit us often to see what we have to offer and tell us how we can serve you better. We want to take that journey with you.

Diane

PBS Programs with an Ohio twist

CET brings great PBS and PBS Kids programming into classrooms and living rooms across Greater Cincinnati every day. Many educators have discovered these high-quality programs and the accompanying educational materials as valuable instructional resources in the classroom.

However, teachers know that pressure to focus on Ohio Academic Content Standards and raise test scores continues to take unparalleled emphasis in each classroom. This emphasis controls virtually every decision made by a teacher to use or not to use available materials in his or her classroom. When a single program or series has been isolated with localized content, the resources have experienced higher than normal usage levels by teachers here in Southwest Ohio. The localized content includes correlations to state standards in that specific content area, multimedia materials and lesson plans written by in-service teachers or area content experts.

CET is launching a year-long intensive campaign to reintroduce and foster usage of the many and varied PBS and CET instructional resources, especially those tied to the prime time and kids’ programs. CET will identify new programming available via broadcast and streaming for classroom viewing. Learning Services will collaborate with creative and technology-savvy area teachers to create and share their lesson plans and materials with other teachers. All materials will be made available via CETconnect.org. CET will also solicit assistance from school technology coordinators to make sure the technology used in this project is appropriate and accessible by targeted teachers in the schools and at home. Opportunity will be given to teachers to participate in a “wiki-based” lesson plan development project to ascertain if collaborative efforts online will result in high quality materials and the sharing of creativity and innovation across school districts.

To help us jump start this effort, we need your help. We want to determine which PBS or CET resources you currently use. Please take our brief online survey and help us in the future to better meet your needs. If you would like to submit a lesson plan based on a PBS program, or if you are interested in learning more about the project, please contact us.

This project is made possible by generous support from The Wohlgemuth Herschede Foundation.

It's mine! Or is it?

It is so easy to download a song from the Internet. A few keystrokes and the song now lives on your computer hard drive or MP3 player. You can enjoy it any time you want. But, wait. Did you pay for that song? Did you ask for permission to copy it for your personal use? Did you even think about it?

If adults are unaware, or worse, uncaring of the intellectual property laws that protect copyright holders, why would teens be any better? A recent Microsoft survey revealed that half of today's teens were not familiar with the legal consequences of copyright laws and illegal downloading. As a result, some college students are facing jail time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines due to illegal music or video downloading. Another report states that up to 90 percent of high school students admitted to copying others' work, while 60 percent of high school students confessed to cheating on tests.

The W. Frank Steely Library at Northern Kentucky University has received a Cincinnati Bar Foundation grant to provide educational copyright and plagiarism awareness films and a website for regional schools. John Schlipp, extended collection services librarian and project director, oversees Creative Thinking: Intellectual Property for Teens and Young Adults. As part of the project, an NKU summer film class taught by Associate Professor Chris Strobel created two original short films. A project committee, comprised of representatives from NKU, University of Louisville, and other regional community partners such as CET and the Campbell County Public Library will coordinate the final film/website presentation.

Area teachers and professors have provided feedback for the content of the short films and website class curriculum support materials, such as student assignments, class activities and quizzes. "Our goal is to produce content which is both engaging and informative for teens and young adults," Schlipp said. The website is scheduled for public access in the spring of 2009.

Looking For A Hero

Ohio needs a new superintendent of public instruction. One who can be student centered, charismatic and politically savvy all at the same time. This hero must also have a strong understanding of public education and strong administrative skills to manage 650+ people and an operating budget of $11.2 billion. Finally, this mortal who is only slightly less powerful than Zeus, should be an independent thinker capable of building consensus while effectively leading and building trust and confidence in Ohio’s public education system.

When this amazing person surfaces and begins the herculean task of leading Ohio’s educational efforts, will we see a difference at the grass roots level in the 600,000+ classrooms across Ohio? Will we see teachers and administrators rallying behind this new leader? Will we see a ripple effect throughout the educational community?

As Ohio’s Governor Ted Strickland visits CET and other public television stations around the state over the next few weeks to engage in community forums focusing on education, this topic will come up. Let’s see where the conversation goes.

Those who can't do, teach

Is it true that those who can’t do, teach? If so, what does that mean for students being taught by teachers who don’t have a strong understanding of and enthusiasm about the content area they are teaching? Is it an even more pronounced problem in the areas of math and science?

The University of Cincinnati has two new grants that are researching ways to lure more highly qualified young adults to teaching, specifically elementary and middle-school math and science teachers. The goal is to train more teachers to provide challenging and engaging instruction in math, science, technology and engineering. Better trained teachers will do a better job of teaching these concepts to their students. Better educated students will be more likely to consider careers in these areas. More highly qualified scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians coming out of America’s schools and universities will lead to a cycle of teaching and learning that will reverse a decades-old trend of declining STEM growth in our country.

Cincinnati Public Schools is making math and science instruction a priority by converting two existing schools into schools that emphasize math and science. The GE College Bound math- and science- grant is aggressively pushing math and science instruction along with professional development for teachers.

As more and better teachers fill our math and science classrooms, maybe the saying will go something like “Those who can do, teach.”

Diane

PBS Teachers Connect connects to you

Do you ever feel isolated in your classroom? Do you feel that the time to communicate and collaborate with your colleagues is too limited? Do you long for the chance to share ideas and learn from others as part of your professional development? Would you like easily accessible and high quality multimedia resources to use in your classroom? PBS has a solution for you.

PBS has unveiled a new online community for preK-12 educators that supports the use of digital media content and technology integration in education. PBS Teachers Connect provides teachers, school library media specialists, technology coordinators, early childhood educators and other education professionals with opportunities to share ideas, collaborate and support the effective use of instructional technology and multimedia into the classroom with the enhancement of student learning and achievement as the ultimate goal.

This free collection of resources allow educators to search more than 3,000 standards-based classroom activities, lesson plans, interactive resources and other materials, then easily bookmark, annotate, share and manage their tagged content within the PBS Teachers Connect community. Many of the resources feature PBS’ award-winning programming and content, including on-demand streaming video from select PBS programs. Among the many high quality resources you’ll find are video and other materials created right here in Ohio. Educators here in Greater Cincinnati will be able to customize their homepages to receive information about CET programming and event schedules as well as have direct access to the many localized education resources created by CET’s Learning Services department.

PBS Teachers Connect will foster discussion and use of digital media content, and enable educators to form shared-interest groups online. The community features a personalized homepage for each user, enhanced user profiles, a searchable database of resources and community members, bookmarking tools and discussion threads. A key component is the PBS Teacher Leader program, which recognizes and rewards innovation in the use of digital media and technology in education. PBS Teacher Leaders will be an integral part of the online community’s continued development by fostering discussion, collaboration and contribution of teacher-created content.

With the vast majority of students using social networking sites on a weekly basis, more educators are incorporating social media tools in their professional lives to collaborate with and support each other. Community-building that once was confined to face-to-face encounters in school departments and association conferences, or informal contacts with like-minded staff members, is now increasingly happening online. PBS Teachers Connect is another tool that opens doors to an unprecedented array of learning opportunities in an environment where educators often feel freer to express themselves, share their ideas and be catalysts for change.

Welcome to the CET Teach blog

This is the first post on the CET Teach blog. Here we'll give you the latest news on upcoming workshops, resources and services to the educational community. Occasionally we'll toss in our thoughts and opinions on issues in education here at home and abroad.

I know that the target audience for this blog is now at home enjoying their summer vacation. However, we're hard at work creating the services and resources you'll use this September. Check in often and get the latest. Of course, feel free to leave your comments. You are an integral part of this blog.

If you're interested in learning more about CET Learning Services, click here.

Diane