Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is approaching and teachers will be searching for materials.  Frankly, the Professional library has only a handful of books, and they are probably already out – in other words, we are not the greatest resource. But …

Medianet, the TDSB central DVD and video collection, has many resources for the classroom.  To get the Remembrance Day mediagraphy go the Mediagraphies by Curriculum Subjects and Grade Level page from the home page, open the file titled General and Special Mediagaphies, and there are 44 titles for borrowing listed under Remembrance Day Programs.

The Internet has a host of good Canadian web pages, including: The Royal Canadian Legion, Veterans Affairs Canada, The Dominion Institute Memory Project, The Canadian War Museum, Historica (see unit Peace & Conflict), CBC Archives  (see Conflict and War).

Also, the Toronto Star Pages of the Past  (newspaper digital full-image since 1894) is on every TDSB elementary and secondary school library web page.  Students can read the headlines and stories from any day, any year. What a great teaching tool!

Rowan

Literacy Website – ReadThinkWrite.org

The September ‘07 issue of Reading Teacher promotes a website portal ReadWriteThink.org offering free lesson plans to improve and enrich  reading and writing instruction.  Lessons are: available for both elementary and secondary panels; written and reviewed by literacy educators.  The portal includes links to other web resources and a student materials index of interactive tools, like graphic organizers. It has been created by the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTM). The webpage includes a link to full-colour monthly calendar of education and literacy related events, and the whole thing is updated regularly.

Rowan

What Works Clearinghouse

Affiliated with the US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) mandate is to collect, screen and identify studies of effectiveness on educational interventions.  This means that they review and assess different programs and products, for example Reading Recovery (in Beginning Reading) is one of the programs evaluated, put on a chart, and you can see how it rates compared to other programs.  Current topics include: beginning reading, character education, dropout prevention, and others.  

However, what interested me was the link to to the Practice Guides.  The Practice Guides claim to bring the best available evidence and expertise to bear on the types of challenges that cannot be addressed by single interventions or programs.  3 pdf reports are available, titled: Encouraging Girls in Math and Science (Sept 2007); Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning (Sept 2007); Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Language Learners in the Elementary Grades (July 2007). Very current – both by date and subject matter.

Rowan

Differentiated Education

This is a hot topic and we have created a bibliography of resources available through the Library. Click  here for the bib -> differentiated-instruction.doc .

Rowan

Ordering Ministry documents

When the Min. of Ed. creates new print documents , copies  are mailed  directly to the schools. The documents are no longer sent to a central Board location for distribution – in other words, they don’t come to Tippett. Tippett does not get them so we can’t provide copies of them to the schools. 

If a school, teacher or library wants to get copies, there are 2 options.  You can print them offline from the Ministry web page (not a great choice if the document is long, or in colour), or you can order them from Publications Ontario.  Phone number 1-800-668-9938 or (416) 326-5300.

Combined Grades (Min. document)

Combined Grades: Strategies to Reach a Range of Learners in Kindergarten to Grade 6 is a 2007 document available on the Ministry Web page. It has 2 main sections: literacy and mathematics.  It also provides brief answers to questions commonly asked by concerned parents, like: why do you have classes on combined grades?; what are the benefits of placement in a class of combined grades?; why was my child chosen to be in  a class of combined grades.  Available for borrowing from the Library at 371.3 Com.

Rowan